Matt Wearn claims back-to-back sailing world championships after Adelaide domination

West Australian sailor Matt Wearn has won back-to-back world championships in the Laser class in a perfect preparation for his Olympic gold medal defence in Paris. Wearn entered Wednesday’s ILCA 7 medal race off the coast of Adelaide eight points clear of Norwegian Hermann Tomasgaard with Briton Micky Beckett a point further back. He won Wednesday’s double-points medal race to finish 10 points clear of Tomasgaard and 17 ahead of Beckett, who will both be fierce challengers at the Paris Olympics, which will be sailed off Marseille, with other rivals German Philipp Buhl (fourth at the worlds), Kiwi Thomas Saunders (fifth) and Cypriot Pavlos Kontides (sixth). Fellow West Australian Luke Elliott finished 10th in the medal race to finish a creditable 10th overall. Wearn, a WAIS graduate who now trains out of Sydney with the Australian sailing team under national coach Rafa Trujillo, described the win as “special”. “To win one world championship is pretty special. To be able to get it back to back and also to be able to do it in Australia too is pretty awesome and obviously in the build up to the Games as well,” he told The West Australian. “Obviously the pressure is on and I will take a lot of confidence from that. “Laser class now is always incredibly close and anyone in the top 10-15 could potentially win the world championship. “You need to be able to turn it on when you need to turn it on and this week was no different. “Between the top three, myself and Hermann and Micky (Beckett), we were always there or thereabouts with each other in the racing all week. We brought the best out of each other.” Wearn was untroubled in the medal race. “It was pretty standard Adelaide conditions, a building sea breeze of 15 knots by the time the race started and 17 by the time it finished,” he said. “It was great to really finish off the regatta on a high.” Wearn threw off a long bout of illness to win his first world title last year in Mexico, after finishing second at three previous world titles. That followed a difficult pathway to Olympic gold in Tokyo after he missed the Australian squad in 2015 and was narrowly edged out of Olympic selection in 2016. “I feel like I am finding the form I want to be in for sure,” he said. “To be able to do it consistently in any conditions, day in, day out, I am starting to feel a lot more comfortable. “You have to be able to do that if you want to win world championships. “Now the results are there we have to keep pressing going towards Paris.” Wearn is also one of 12 finalists for the SportWest WA Sports Star of the Year award, which will be held on February 29.