News After handing out 138 Olympic spots in 2014, sailing’s schedule of Rio 2016 qualifying events heats up again this week On Monday (29), the 2015 Laser World Championship begins in Kingston, Canada, with nine Olympic berths in the Laser class on offer to its 159 participants   With more than half of all the Olympic sailing berths already decided thanks to the multi-boat-class International Sailing Federation (ISAF) World Championships in 2014, 2015 sees sailing’s programme of qualifiers specialise, presenting a series of World Championships for specific boat classes – the first of which begins this week with the Kingston Laser competition The championship features competitors from 64 nations, and the countries represented by the nine best-placed boats, who have not already qualified for Rio 2016, will win a spot at the Olympic Games   The competition will bring together top names in the sport, including the Australians Tom Burton and Matthew Wearn, first and second placed on the world ranking lists respectively Also taking part is the Brazilian Robert Scheidt, who stands a chance of smashing the record at Rio 2016 for winning the greatest number of medals in the history of Olympic sailing His compatriots João Pedro de Oliveira and Bruno Fontes (the latter who sailed at the 2008 Beijing Games and in London in 2012), will also be there   In all, 274 boats will take to the waters of Guanabara Bay at Rio 2016, of which 138 vacancies have already been allocated Nine further spots will be decided starting this week at the 2015 Laser World Championships; forty-seven more will qualify via other world championships in 2015; seventy-five will qualify in Continental Qualification Events to be held between 2015 and 2016; and 10 seats are reserved for Brazil (the host country) The remaining four berths will be distributed by invitation of the ISAF   Later on this week, the 2015 Nacra 17 World Championships start in Aarhus, Denmark, on Friday (3 July), with three berths on offer in the Multihull Nacra 17 class at the Rio 2016 Games Qualifying for the Olympic and Paralympic Games is a continual process and the final places will only be confirmed in July 2016 (for the Olympic Games) and August 2016 (for the Paralympic Games) Places are recommended by national federations or the sporting organisations of each country and its respective National Olympic Committee or National Paralympic Committee, who will decide the final places