SAKAIMINATO CITY, Japan—Two sailors from Newport Beach finished in the Top 30 of the 2019 Laser Standard World Championships in Sakaiminato City, Japan, on July 9, with one of those Olympic candidates placing just shy of the 10 best finishes of the event.
Charlie Buckingham, the highest-placing U.S. sailor at the end of racing, completed the six-day Laser World Championships with an eleventh-place finish. The 29th-place finish of Christopher Barnard followed Buckingham.
Paul Didham of San Diego completed the championship race with a 119th-place finish.
Buckingham, according to U.S. Sailing, is “in position to move forward with an Early Selection phase of the 2020 U.S. Sailing Olympic Trials” despite falling just short of a podium finish at the Laser World Championships.
Henry Marshall of Newton, Massachusetts was the top U.S. sailor at the outset, beginning the six-day regatta with a first-place finish in the opening race. He ended up placing 39th, overall, the third highest finish for a U.S. sailor, behind Buckingham and Barnard.
The Top 10 looked like this:
- Tom Burton, Australia
- Matthew Wearn, Australia
- George Gautrey, New Zealand
- Sam Meech, New Zealand
- Nick Thompson, Great Britain
- Jean-Baptiste Bernaz, France
- Elliot Hanson, Great Britain
- Lorenzo Brando Chiavarini, Great Britain
- Philipp Buhl, Germany
- Thomas Saunders, New Zealand.
Sakaiminato City is non the southwestern coast of Japan, in roughly equidistant between Osaka and Hiroshima.
