John Gimson is an elite Olympic sailor residing in Congleton. He has achieved outstanding success competing in the mixed Nacra 17 multihull class.
Gimson is a two-time World Champion in the Olympic discipline and won the Silver Medal with At the recent sailing partner Anna Burnet at the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics representing Team Great Britain.
Team Great Britain‘s sailors, John Gimson and Anna Burnet, have qualified to compete in the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.
John Gimson Is Qualified for the 2024 Paris Olympics
At the recent Sailing World Championships, British sailors John Gimson and Anna Burnet won the silver medal in the mixed Nacra multihull event. They finished sixth in the medal race but were unable to overtake the Italian team of Ruggero Tita and Caterina Banti, who won gold.
“To come away with the silver medal is massive,”
said Burnett.
“We have our conditions and the Italians have their conditions and we had more days of theirs than ours, but we train together so hopefully we can keep pushing each other hard.”
Gimson added
Gimson and Burnet have now been selected to represent Great Britain for the 2024 Paris Olympics. Having won silver together in Tokyo in 2020, they now have set their sights on winning gold in Paris. Gimson stated that the best way they can achieve that is by working extremely hard over the next year to be in peak form when the Paris Games start.
The duo will be trying hard to upgrade their silver to gold in Paris, just as they did at the recent World Championships. Even with the different sailing conditions expected in Marseille, they are prepared to put in maximum effort. That includes training with the Italian team that narrowly beat them for the gold medal in Tokyo last year.
John Gimson Early Life with his Parents
John Gimson was born on March 11, 1983, in Leicester, England. His father is named Paul Gimson. John is from the town of Congleton. He sails for a club called Rudyard Lake in Staffordshire, UK. His coach since 2017 is Hugh Styles.
John has GCSE and A-Level qualifications. The first boat he sailed was a National 12. His first completed event was a club championship. He won his first event at the National 12 Youth Championships.
John Gimson’s Career
Early Career
He began sailing at 7 years old and started running at age 10.
In the initial stages of his career, John Gimson gained experience through typical training, youth sailing programs, and regional/national events. He began achieving noticeable results by 2005, ranking 41st in the Semaine Olympique Francaise and 19th in the Holland Regatta that year.
Other sailing highlights included placing 2nd at the 2009 ISAF World Cup and 2012 Albacore Nationals. In 2012, Gimson joined the successful star-class team of Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson to train for the London Olympics.
Also Read: Paris Olympics 2024 (Team GB): Meet Sailor Anna Burnet
When the Star was dropped from the Games after 2012 though, Gimson switched his focus to the Nacra 17 multihull class. Transitioning to the Nacra 17, he steadily improved ranking 5th in the 2015 Nacra World Cup, then securing consecutive 6th place finishes in the 2017 Sailing World Cup-Nacra and Nacra 17 Worlds events. Through determined training and competition in these early years, Gimson laid the foundations to excel on his road to becoming an elite Olympic sailor.
Professional Career
Gimson and his partner Anna Burnet found major success together in the Nacra 17, winning the 2020 World Championships. Additionally, they earned silver medals in several other notable 2019 events – the European Championships, World Cup Final, and the Tokyo Olympics test event.
Representing Team Great Britain with Burnet, Gimson competed in the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics in the Nacra 17 class, capturing the silver medal. Beyond that Olympic medal peak, other highlights of his world championship career are winning the 2020 Nacra 17 Worlds itself along with a second-place finish previously in the 29er World Championships.
