Mitchell Jay "Mitch" Booth (born 4 January 1963, in

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

) is a

sailor A sailor, seaman, mariner, or seafarer is a person who works aboard a watercraft as part of its crew, and may work in any one of a number of different fields that are related to the operation and maintenance of a ship. The profession of the s ...

from

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

, who represented his native country for the first time at the

1992 Summer Olympics The 1992 Summer Olympics ( es, Juegos Olímpicos de Verano de 1992, ca, Jocs Olímpics d'estiu de 1992), officially known as the Games of the XXV Olympiad ( es, Juegos de la XXV Olimpiada, ca, Jocs de la XXV Olimpíada) and commonly known as ...

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...

. Booth as helmsman in the Australian

Tornado A tornado is a violently rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the Earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. It is often referred to as a twister, whirlwind or cyclone, altho ...

with John Forbes as crew took Bronze. In

1996 File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A Centennial Olympic Park bombing, bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical Anti-abortion violence, anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 8 ...

, Booth made a second appearance this time with crew member

Andrew Landenberger Andrew Landenberger (born 15 September 1966) is an Australian sailor and Olympic medalist. He won a silver medal in the Tornado class at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia together with Mitch Booth. Life and career Born in Graft ...

the team took the Silver in the

. In

2004 2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and its Abolition (by UNESCO). Events January * January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight 6 ...

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...

Booth represented the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

as helmsman of the Dutch

. With crew member

Herbert Dercksen Herbert Willem Constant Dercksen (1 March 1973, Gouda) is a sailor from the Netherlands, who represented his country for the first time at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Savannah. Dercksen as crew in the Dutch Tornado with Ron van Teylingen as hel ...

Booth took 5th place. His final Olympic appearance came during the

2008 Summer Olympics The 2008 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXIX Olympiad () and also known as Beijing 2008 (), were an international multisport event held from 8 to 24 August 2008, in Beijing, China. A total of 10,942 athletes from 204 Na ...

Qingdao Qingdao (, also spelled Tsingtao; , Mandarin: ) is a major city in eastern Shandong Province. The city's name in Chinese characters literally means " azure island". Located on China's Yellow Sea coast, it is a major nodal city of the One Belt ...

. Now with crew member

Pim Nieuwenhuis Pim Nieuwenhuis (born 23 December 1976, in Enkhuizen) is a sailor from the Netherlands. Nieuwenhuis as crew on the Dutch Tornado with Mitch Booth as helmsman took 5th place in the Tornado during the 2008 Olympics, in Qingdao. Sailing career Nie ...

in the Dutch

, Booth finished 5th.

Sailing career

Booth started his sailing career at the age of four, when his mother taught him the basics on

Pittwater Pittwater is a semi-mature tide dominated drowned valley estuary, located about north of the Sydney central business district, New South Wales, Australia; being one of the bodies of water that separate greater Metropolitan Sydney from the Ce ...

. Alongside his father John (Jay) Booth won his first State Championship as a seven-year-old boy. His father honored his desire to skipper and compete in international competitions. 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 The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. 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 The Extreme 40 is a class of sailing catamaran created by TornadoSport and designed by Yves Loday. The boats are 40 feet long and are constructed out of carbon fibre. They have a top speed of about and can sail at about in 20–25 knots of wind ...

, 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 2000 Sydney he was coach of the Australian national team squad.

Awards and records

He has been named the 1992

Australian Yachtsman of the Year Australian Yachtsman of the Year Award was created in 1962 by Max Press, OAM, the then Commodore of the Parkdale Yacht Club in Melbourne. The club was launching an appeal to build its new clubhouse on Port Phillip Bay foreshore at Parkdale and t ...

, 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 (

Cádiz Cádiz (, , ) is a city and port in southwestern Spain. It is the capital of the Province of Cádiz, one of eight that make up the autonomous community of Andalusia. Cádiz, one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Western Europe, ...

San Salvador San Salvador (; ) is the capital and the largest city of El Salvador and its eponymous department. It is the country's political, cultural, educational and financial center. The Metropolitan Area of San Salvador, which comprises the capital i ...

) record holder (ClubMed) and the current Round Britain and Ireland record (

PlayStation (yacht) ''Cheyenne'', formerly known as ''PlayStation'' is a large catamaran created for the 2000 around the world race known as The Race. Like its competitors, ''Cheyenne'' was created for sheer speed, pushing the state of the art in materials, constru ...

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Booth, Mitch 1963 births Living people Australian male sailors (sport) Dutch male sailors (sport) Sailors at the 1992 Summer Olympics – Tornado Sailors at the 1996 Summer Olympics – Tornado Sailors at the 2004 Summer Olympics – Tornado Sailors at the 2008 Summer Olympics – Tornado Olympic sailors for Australia Olympic sailors for the Netherlands Olympic silver medalists for Australia Olympic bronze medalists for Australia Olympic medalists in sailing China Team sailors Extreme Sailing Series sailors Sailors (sport) from Sydney Medalists at the 1996 Summer Olympics Medalists at the 1992 Summer Olympics Tornado class world champions World champions in sailing for Australia Sportsmen from New South Wales