Mitch Booth

Medal record
Competitor for  Australia
Men's Sailing
Olympic Games
Bronze	1992 Barcelona	Tornado class
Silver	1996 Atlanta	Tornado class

Mitch Booth (born 4 January 1963 in Sydney, Australia) is a Dutch sailor.^[1] He is a two time Olympic medalist and ten time World Champion in the Tornado, Hobie, A class and Formula 18 classes.^[2]

Booth started his sailing career at the age of four, when his mother thought him the basics on Pittwater.^[2] Alongside his father he won his first State Championship as a seven year old boy.^[2] His desire to skipper and compete in international competitions grew and his first break-through came at the age of seventeen, when finishing second in an Australian Championship.^[2] This achievement guaranteed his participation at the World Championship in the United States. From a fleet of over hundred boats representing nine countries, he and his crew went on to win the title.^[2] Since then Booth has made his life as a professional sailor. The projects have varied from Olympic sailing to Ocean racing and to keel boat racing.^[2] Off the water he has been involved in many sailing related activities including the creation of the current Olympic Tornado Class Rig, design and build of A Class cats, the creation of Volvo Extreme 40, sailing Manager for America’s cup team (1995) and technical adviser to ISAF.^[2]

In total he took part in 64 World Championships, becoming World Champion a total of ten times.^[2] In the 50 national championships in which he took part he took the title a total of 13 times.^[2] He has won 23 out of 47 Australian State Championships in which he performed. He won eight European titles since becoming Dutch in sixteen starts.^[2] He took part in four Olympics, Barcelona 1992 (bronze in the tornado for Australia with John Forbes), Atlanta 1996 (silver in the tornado for Australia with Andrew Landenberger), Athens 2004 (5th in the tornado for the Netherlands with Herbert Dercksen) and Beijing 2008 (in the tornado for the Netherlands with Pim Nieuwenhuis). In Sydney 2000 he was coach of the Australian national team squad.^[2]

He has been named the 1992 Australian Yachtsman of the Year, the 1993 Caltex Sports Star finalist, three times NSW Yachtsman of the Year, the 1995 America's Cup sailing manager, the 1996 MMI Sports Star finalist, the 1996 Australian Yachtsman of the Year and the 2004 Dutch Sailor of the year.^[2] He was also crew member of the boats holding the previous World 24 hour distance record and Transatlantic (Cadiz to San Salvador) record holder (ClubMed) and the current Round Britain and Ireland record (Playstation (yacht)).^[2][3][4]

References

1. ^ Athlete biography: Mitch Booth, beijing2008.cn, ret: 15 Aug 2008
2. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m} CV Mitch Booth, teamzwitserleven.nl, ret: 15 Aug 2008
3. ^ [1], WSSRC: Transatlantic records, ret: 20 Aug 2008
4. ^ [2], WSSRC: Distance records,, ret: 20 Aug 2008

Persondata
Name	Booth, Mitch
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	4 January 1963
Place of birth
Date of death
Place of death