For immediate release
 
Nova Scotia’s Paul Tingley adds “World Champion” to his growing list of medals

HALIFAX, NS (Thursday, September 30, 2010) – Paul Tingley returned home to Nova Scotia this week bearing a new world title. On Sunday he was crowned the 2.4mR Open World Champion for 2010 after beating out eighty-five of the world’s best sailors from over 15 countries. 

“This is a significant win for Canada. There were a number of competitors with world titles, not only from this class but in other classes,” said Brian Todd, a Coach with the Canadian Sailing Team. “This championship is probably one of the tougher fleets you’ll find. In many fleets the number of boats is smaller. Here we literally had 85 boats on the line, starting every race and battling every second. These boats are 13 feet long and the tactical situations that come up in that environment are infinite.”

Todd adds, “Paul has taken sailing to a new level. Five years ago I coached him at the Open Worlds in Finland where he placed 36th. In just five years he has taken himself to the very top, which is amazing.”

The competition took place in Holland September 18-25.

Colin Guthrie is a Mental Performance Consultant with the Canadian Sport Centre Atlantic and Consultant to the Canadian Sailing Team's Olympic and Paralympic athletes. He says, “The thing that’s really interesting about this (world championship) is it is the only sailing regatta in the world where able bodied compete equally with the disabled for the title of a World Champion. So the best of the best in the world race against each other, period.” He adds, “There are only two other teams in the history of this province who have a world championship in an Olympic or Paralympic class.”

Tingley is no stranger to international victory having also won a gold medal for Canada at the 2008 Paralympics in Beijing. The 40 year-old from Halifax is currently training for the 2012 Paralympics in London.

“The competition was tough with many lead changes and all of it being decided on the last race,” said Tingley. "It feels amazing to win and it is a very good boost for my 2012 London campaign."

Tingley is also the first Canadian disabled sailor to win the world championship. In the past twenty years only four other disabled sailors have been victorious. Tingley beat able-bodied Stellan Berlin, a six-time world champion from Sweden, who placed second. Berlin develops the sails for the 2.4mR boat. A mentor of Tingley, he was hosted by the Canadian Sport Centre Atlantic at an August workshop in St. Margaret’s Bay where he acted as a consultant.

Tingley is a recipient of the Nova Scotia Gaming Corporation's Support4Sport Program, the most significant annual source of funding for sport in Nova Scotia. The fund is administered by Sport Nova Scotia.

“Paul is a fantastic ambassador for the sport, for Nova Scotia and for Canada. It is programs like Support4Sport that help this province cultivate world champions like Paul,” says Jamie Ferguson, CEO of Sport Nova Scotia.  “We all feel an immense amount of pride when one of our own comes home with an international victory.”

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For more information, please contact:
Carolyn Townsend
Sport Nova Scotia
Tel: (902) 425-5450 ext. 321

Paul Tingley
Cell (902) 229-0281

Colin Guthrie
Canadian Sport Centre Atlantic
Tel: (902) 425-5822