Mitch Booth

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Mitch Booth
Personal information
Full name Mitchell Jay "Mitch" Booth
Nickname(s) 'The Old Guy'
Nationality Dutch
Born (1963-01-04) 4 January 1963
Sydney, Australia
Height 1.69 m (5.5 ft)
Sport
Sport Sailing
Class(es) Tornado
Club Pittwater ; Rotterdamsche Zeilvereeniging
Medal record
sailing
Competitor for  Australia
Olympic Games
Bronze 1992 Barcelona Tornado
Silver 1996 Atlanta Tornado
Competitor for  Netherlands
World Championships
Bronze 2002 Tornado
European Championships
Silver 2002 Tornado
Gold 2004 Tornado
Bronze 2005 Tornado
Updated on 2014-01-14.

Mitchell Jay "Mitch" Booth (4 January 1963, Sydney) is a sailor from the Australia, who represented his native country for the first time at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona. Booth as helmsman in the Australian Tornado with John Forbes as crew took Bronze. In 1996, Savannah Booth made a second appearance this time with crew member Andrew Landenberger the team took the Silver. In 2004, Athens Booth represented The Netherlands as helmsman of the Dutch Tornado. With crew member Herbert Dercksen Booth took 5th place. His final Olympic appearance came during the 2008 Summer Olympics in Qingdao. Now with crew member Pim Nieuwenhuis in the Dutch Tornado, Booth finished 5th.

Sailing career

Booth started his sailing career at the age of four, when his mother thought him the basics on Pittwater. Alongside his father he won his first State Championship as a seven-year-old boy. 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. 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. 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. 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.

In total he took part in 64 World Championships, becoming World Champion a total of ten times. In the 50 national championships in which he took part he took the title a total of 13 times. 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. He took part in four Olympics. In Sydney 2000 he was coach of the Australian national team squad.

Awards & Records

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. 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)).[1][2]

Awards
Preceded by
John Dransfield		 Australian Yachtsman of the Year
with John Forbes
1991 - 1992 		Succeeded by
Syd Fischer
Preceded by
David Adams		 Australian Yachtsman of the Year
1995 - 1996 		Succeeded by
Chris Nicholson & Daniel Phillips


External links

References

  1. ↑ , WSSRC: Transatlantic records, ret: 20 Aug 2008
  2. ↑ , WSSRC: Distance records,, ret: 20 Aug 2008
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