European champion was surprisingly the Belgian Philippe Bergmans, who benefited from the complicated championship rules. The leading Australian Michael Blackburn was only allowed to cancel one final race and fell back to fifth in the overall standings.
Bergmans also won the official European Championship ranking, without participants from overseas, ahead of Paul Goodison from England and Maciej Grabowski from Poland. The best German was Matthias Rieck in eleventh in the open classification. Just like Alexander Schlonski (Rostock), he made it through the B-cadre norm of the German Sailing Association as 20th. After a well-deserved vacation, both now want to dare a new attack - with the big goal of the Olympi2008.
There was also a change in leadership in the junior field. The long leading Croatian Tonci Stipanovic was disqualified in the last race and had to give way to the British Keir Clarke. There was jubilation in the German camp after the 5th place of Lübeck's Simon Grotelüschen and 9th place of Berlin's Stefan Hoffmann.
A total of 40 participating nations set a new record for Warnemünde - there has never been a more international championship before Rostock.
Final score:Laser EM (after 11 races) 1. Philippe Bergmans (Belgium) 33.02. Tom Slingsby (Australia) 49.03. Paul Goodison (Great Britain) 54.04. Mark Mendelblatt (USA) 64.0 5. Michael Blackburn (Australia) 72.0 point
11. Matthias Rieck (Warnemünde) 87.0 20. Alexander Schlonski (Rostock) 126.