Tom
Ramshaw

Athlete Bio

Tom Ramshaw started sailing with his father at the age of 5 at the family’s cottage on Stoney Lake. Three years later, he began sailing lessons at Stoney Lake Yacht Club near his cottage where he met new friends and fell in love with the sport. Tom took part in his first regatta at the age of 12.

In 2007, in the Laser event, Tom won the Ontario High School Championships and the Ontario Gold Cup. This title awarded him a brand new Laser boat.

The next summer, he moved to Kingston where he could sail in bigger winds and waves on a more consistent basis.

In 2010, Tom decided to move to La Cruz, in Mexico, to solely focus on sailing, attending the International Sailing Academy. He continued training in Mexico every winter until 2015.

In 2015, he switched from the Laser Class to the Finn class after trying the Finn for a week and managing to win the North American Championships. The following year, he finished 8th and 10th place respectively at the World and European Championships.

The 2016 season was highlighted by Tom’s participation at the Rio Olympic Games where he finished 21st overall. Even if Tom competed in the Finn class for only one year, he was disappointed since he felt that he didn’t give his everything and wanted to come back stronger for Tokyo 2020. Among the changes in his preparation, Tom moved to Valencia in November 2016 for an eight-month training block in Spain. At the 2018 World Championships, he took 5th place in the highly competitive fleet.

In Tokyo, he took the 10th position in this last Finn class competition at the Games as World Sailing and the International Olympic Committee plan to replace the Finn with a new class for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

Following Tokyo 2020, he switched to the ILCA 7 class since Finn is not in the Olympic program anymore for Paris 2024.