Laser World Championship: Buhl throws his hat into the ring in the battle for the title

Germany's most successful laser sailor Philipp Buhl is back on course for a medal at the World Championship in Japan's Miho Bay off Sakaiminato. The Sonthofen native from the Alpsee-Immenstadt Sailing Club worked his way up from eleventh place to third place on the first day of the main round after a total of eight races with a concentrated performance. The 29-year-old 2015 World Championship runner-up starts the remaining two days of the World Championship and the last four races 13 points behind the leading Australian Olympic champion Tom Burton.

"It's been hard work so far, a real battle. My starting position is good," said Buhl in Japan, where he wants to fight for an Olympic medal next year in Enoshima, a good 700 kilometres away from the World Championship venue. For the final World Championship sprint, he has resolved to "think less about points and placings and more about the things that make me fast". Buhl seems tidy and focussed these days, but also knows how thin the line is that separates "flow" and "susceptibility to mistakes". He is experiencing the pressure that prevails at world championships for the eleventh time since 2009 and is parrying it well. Some of his strongest competitors from the huge group of medal contenders in this, by far the largest Olympic class, were less able to withstand the pressure on Sunday than the Allgäuer.

"Comeback star" and double Olympic champion Robert Scheidt, 46, from Brazil dropped back to 13th place in the lighter winds with 14th and 30th places. Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Bernaz, who made a strong start to the World Championships, came into the harbour in Sakaiminato on Sunday with two 22nd places and slipped back to fourth place behind Buhl. The positions of the two double world champions Nick Thompson (Great Britain, 9th) and Pavlos Kontides (Cyprus, 47th) show just how broad and strong the world elite is in the Laser. The performance of Buhl's 22-year-old team-mate Nik Aron Willim is more than impressive: The helmsman from the Norddeutscher Regatta Verein in Hamburg is in 26th place in the field of 156 starters from 57 nations.

The title fights end on Tuesday with the last two of the twelve races. In the history of the Laser World Championships, no German sailor has ever won the title since the premiere in 1974. Buhl has won silver once and bronze twice (2013, 2018) in ten World Championship appearances to date. The German Sailing Team has been waiting 19 years for the first German World Championship victory in an Olympic sailing discipline.

Here to see the results.