Perth 2011 -ISAF Sailing World Championships - Paul Goodison prepares

by Paul Goodison on 19 Nov 2011 ISAF Sailing World Championships - 2008 Olympic Laser Gold Medalist Paul Goodison prepares to head off to Perth 2011 - here is his latest news:

I’m sitting here looking out of my office window at a 470 and a 49er out on the water in a cold, grey Weymouth and all I can say is I’m pleased that I’m off to Australia on Thursday for training before the ISAF Worlds at the end of next month.

I am really looking forward to the three weeks of training in warmer climates with a good training group prior to the Worlds. I’m sure a lot of guys will be really fired up as the Worlds is a key part to the selection for the games, so it will be good to train against guys that are a little heavier and really optimising for the Perth conditions. It will be fascinating to observe how they perform under huge pressures.

The goal is still to do well in Perth but having already been selected for London 2012, I have to look at the big picture and use the event as a chance to test some of the techniques I’ve been working on in pressurised race situations, to see how automatic they have become.

I’ve been working really hard in the gym over the past month building up my strength, but by doing that I’ve had to compromise some of the cycling that is usually such a big part of my programme. I’m hoping we will start seeing the benefits of that strength work on the water in Perth and it will be interesting to see how the decreased level of bike work translates into a seven-day regatta.

That’s the beauty of being selected early. You are able to periodise your training into blocks, whereby you can concentrate on improvements in certain areas for specified periods of time before bringing everything together to hopefully peak when it matters most.

I’ve had plenty of encouragement on how my campaign is progressing over the past fortnight, not least when my kit failed to turn up on time to a training camp in Tenerife and I managed to still do ok using branches retrieved from a nearby tree as sail battens! I managed to borrow hiking shorts, boots, rudder and tiller and the only thing missing was sail battens so we went and got some twigs and job was a goodun! I’m not sure if it’s worrying or not that they didn’t seem to make much difference to how quickly I sailed!

By day two my kit had arrived so normal service was resumed and I enjoyed a great five days sailing with guys from all over the world in a group invited by the Spaniard Javier Hernández. It is always good to check in with other international sailors. It was a great venue with a couple of days of strong breeze and a bit more lighter, fickle stuff and I was encouraged by how I fared across the range. I definitely want to go back and train there in January.

I headed straight to Tenerife from the start of the Volvo Ocean Race, which was just incredible. Although I went to the stopover in Portsmouth last time, I’ve never been to the start and I just couldn’t get over how professionally everything was set up and run, and how it was all so much bigger than I expected. The biggest thing that struck me was all the teams had these massive Formula 1 style tents and trailers, very impressive.

The Volvo Ocean Race is something I’ve always said I fancied doing for about 24-48 surreal hours before I quickly change my mind and talk myself out of it! But chatting to some of the guys who were doing the race, the amazing challenge of it all, and how revved up they all were before setting off I think it’s definitely something I want to do in the future now. Well until I do another two days’ offshore sailing and convince myself otherwise Paul Goodison website