As Afloat.ie reported earlier, at the U21 Laser World Championships in Poland today 19-year-old Ballyholme Yacht Club Sailor Liam Glynn from Bangor, Co. Down in Northern Ireland took a bronze medal from a fleet of 133 competitors spanning forty countries. The result adds to Ireland's youth medal haul in the Laser class over the past decade.
Glynn secured the medal in difficult shifty conditions on the Baltic Sea. On an outstanding penultimate day, scoring two third places, put him in pole position coming into the final day. A strong charge today by the two German sailors ultimately meant he missed the title but such was the strength of his series he still took the bronze medal.
As a junior, Glynn won the Topper World Championships in 2013. This second World Championship medal bodes well for his future potential in the Olympic discipline, where his main rival for the single Tokyo place is Dun Laoghaire's Finn Lynch a sailor who also performed at U21 level.
As Afloat.ie readers will recall, Ireland has previous success at World Radial youth level. Nine years ago, Wexford’s Philip Doran took the Under 17 world championship title in Japan in 2010. A year earlier he won the Under 16 title. In that same year, 2009, Annalise Murphy, then aged 19, won the Under 21 world title.
Glynn's rival Lynch took bronze in the Men's Radial Worlds, silver in the Europeans and gold in the U21 category at the Laser European and World Championships in 2013 on his home waters of Dun Laoghaire.
Today's qualifies Glynn for the Irish Sailing Senior Team in 2019, and he will now join this team to compete at the Olympic qualifier in Aarhus, Denmark in August