Australia was top Olympic Sailing Nation in 2012 - Again in Rio?
by Rob Kothe on 20 Mar 2016
Jason Waterhouse (NSW) and Lisa Darmanin (NSW) - 2016 Nacra 17, 49er and 49erFX World Championships in Clearwater, Miami Laurens Morel
This week we talked to Peter Conde, the Australian Sailing Team’s High Performance Manager about the progress of the Australian Sailing Team in the run up to Rio compared to 2012.
Conde commented ‘Every cycle is going to be different and present different challenges. Certainly this one presents plenty of challenges, not the least being Rio, but I guess we just have to be able to handle that as well or better than anybody else does.
‘In terms of polluted water, certainly no one would claim it's a great environment to be racing – that's for sure. We generally just use very, very good hygiene and we've been pretty good with what we've done because we really haven't had anyone sick on the water for some considerable time now.
‘You've got to manage the environment in order to be able to compete at your best. I think we've done pretty well at that when it comes to sailing, either training or racing in the Rio waters, certainly over the last year.'
Leading into the London Olympics Australia dominated the results in the three classes in which it went on to win Gold medals. Not so this time.
[Sorry, this content could not be displayed]
‘We certainly look at how we've been going in the Rio environment at the 2014 and 2015 test events and the most recent regatta, the Brazil Regatta. We're pretty happy with how we've gone in those, and we're clearly very strong in 470s, Nacra 17s, Lasers and 49er.
'Our London Gold 49er Gold medallist have had challenges matching an Olympic campaign with an America's Cup campaign and that's incredibly demanding.
'Hopefully Nathan and Iain are able to, between now and the games at least, prioritize their Olympic campaign a little more than they've been able to date. They will be in Palma at the Princesa Sofia regatta, ahead of the 49er Europeans in Barcelona, they will be at the Sailing World Cup in Weymouth.
'The entire racing calendar across so many classes has not been short of ridiculous over the last 12 months in terms of moving gear around. I know we're struggling with that, they may not have their best gear there, but they intend to compete.
'Additionally we've obviously make sure we're spending the necessary time in Rio, because spending time there is extraordinarily important.’
'That was why the Australian Sailing Team prioritized the Copa de Brasil event last December event over the Sailing World Cup in Melbourne. We were very disappointed not to be able to have our best sailors at Sail Melbourne. We had as many as we could have there, but ultimately funding depends so much on the Olympic performance that we always have to prioritize what we have to do to win the medals in Rio. In such an environment as Rio that's very complex, being there is so important.
'The thing that Australia's been doing well in recent Olympic cycles is bringing the next group people on, whether it was Matt Belcher or Will Ryan.
'If we look at the test event last year, to have five individual athletes on the podium at the test event, only one of whom had been on the podium in the London Olympics, that was something that we as a team were quite proud of.
'Its conventional wisdom that second time Olympians are in much better shape to win medals than the first time Olympians, but we took eight first time Olympians to London and five of them came home with medals.
'I think that's a good reflection on the athletes, on the coaches on the team to be able to do that, but it's certainly helpful to have been there before.
'Mind you it would be much tougher for a first time Olympian if they didn't have that experience around them, such as we have had in our team.
'We have a very busy 150 days ahead and we are obviously spending our time between key competitions in Europe and spending time in Rio. Which means for us, I guess like the New Zealanders in particular, a huge amount of time away from home and a long way from home.
'We have athletes who are overseas now who won't be back in the country until after the Olympic games. That's quite challenging. That's the big picture, a lot of young athletes spending an awful long time away from home in those two environments. So managing that and their readiness to compete and train and their freshness is a challenge that the coaches have got to deal with.
'That's a little bit unusual. If you go back to London, we had been competing in Europe and that was the Olympic venue and we'd get to spend a little bit more time at home.
'So that's obviously a big challenge. We've got another round of selections in May, which will be the final round of selections sometime in May. We've obviously selected four classes so far, and we have a potential five additional classes that might come into the picture, depending on the results between now and the end of May.
'So the next months, certainly. For those that are selected, it's really important for them to manage their focus appropriately to perform at the Games and do what they need to do, it's different for all of them.
'For those that have yet to be selected, they've clearly got a job to do between now and May, and then be able to then focus on August.
'In the 2014 and 2015 test events as we call them in Rio, Australia was at the top of the medal tally in both of those and we'll be doing our level best to maximize the return from Rio.
'It's just going to be different and our record there so far has been pretty good, so we've just got to make sure that our athletes are in a great position to perform their very best in August 2016.'
If you want to link to this article then please use this URL: www.sail-world.com/143178