Michael Blackburn (sailor)

Michael Blackburn (born 27 May 1970 in Sydney, New South Wales) is an Australian Olympic medallist and sailor. He is well known for his crossing of Bass Strait in a Laser dinghy. He did so on 9 March 2005 in a record time (for sailing) of 13 hours 1 minute.

Michael Blackburn
Medal record
Sailing
Representing  Australia
Olympic Games
2000 Sydney Laser

In March 2005, he was ranked 3rd in the world in the Laser, behind Robert Scheidt of Brazil and Paul Goodison of Great Britain, and ahead of Mark Mendelblatt of the United States.[1]

Blackburn also won the 2006 Laser World Championships in Jeju, Korea. He placed 9th at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece. He won a bronze medal in the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia. He was coach of Australian Olympic Gold medalist Tom Slingsby in the Laser class at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. He followed this by coaching Tom Burton to gold in the Laser class at the 2016 Summer Olympics.[2][3]

In 2016 and 2019 , he was named Coach of the Year at the Australian Institute of Sport Performance Awards.[4][5]

Outside of sailing, Blackburn has a PhD in Human Movement Studies. He is also a founder of SportsMindSkills.com which sells downloadable sports psychology products. He was an Australian Institute of Sport scholarship holder.[6]

References
  1. "ISAF: World Sailing Rankings; Single-handed dinghy men – Laser". Sailing.org. 4 March 2005. Retrieved 8 July 2011.
  2. "Rankings". sailing.org. Retrieved 4 June 2016.
  3. "Michael Blackburn" (PDF). Australian Sailing website. Retrieved 14 December 2016.
  4. "Chalmers claims two AIS awards to complete fairy tale year". Australian Sports Commission website. Archived from the original on 20 April 2018. Retrieved 14 December 2016.
  5. "Barty Party continues at the AIS Awards". Sport Australia. 10 December 2019. Retrieved 11 December 2019.
  6. AIS at the Olympics Archived 23 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine


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