Editorial- The Olympic Agony and Ecstasy
by nzeditor@sail-world.com on 6 Mar 2008
Welcome to the mid-week edition of Sail-World.Com/NZ’s newsletter.
Olympic nominations for the 2008 Sailing Olympics took centre stage today.
This morning came the news from the New Zealand Olympic Committee that the youngest ever New Zealand crew, Peter Burling and Carl Evans had been confirmed in the 2008 Olympic Team, along with the Star crew of Hamish Pepper and Carl Williams.
Later in the day Yachting New Zealand confirmed the rumours that the Yngling crew of Sharon Ferris, Raynor Smeal and Olivia Powrie would not be nominated in the Womens keelboat event. That follows on a similar announcement that no nominations would be made in the Womens 470 event either.
In both events, New Zealand had qualified for the 2008 Olympics at Cascais in August 2007.
The confirmation of Evans and Burling comes on the back of an earlier announcement from Yachting New Zealand that they were being submitted for consideration by NZOC. It seems hard to comprehend that three years these two sailors were knocking around in the junior classes – Burling in the Starling class and Evans in the P-class. To describe their rise as stellar is an understatement.
Along the way they have won and defended a 420 World Championship - with a former 470 World Champion finishing in second place, on both occasions. In their first real international regatta in the 470 – at the 2007 470 Europeans they finished sixth overall – after having sailed the class for just three months or so. They backed this result up with an 11th place in the 2008 World Championships.
Pepper and Williams, while older, are singing the same song, second verse, winning the first Star World Championship they entered in San Francisco, followed with a win in the North Americans. Pepper then went on to win the Bacardi Cup, with David Giles as crew, just over a year ago.
This performance is remarkable in a class which is not sailed in New Zealand, and which attracts some of the most experienced sailors in the world - almost all from countries and regions which have a long history of competition in the Star boat, and with a good understanding of just what has to be done to sail fast and win in this difficult class.
Spare a thought too, at this time of Olympic nominations, for Emirates Team New Zealand grinder Rob Waddell, who has performed outstandingly since returning to rowing after a seven year layoff. He dragged the Olympic selection trial out to 1-1 against the current (and triple) World Champion, set a couple of world records on the erg machine, only to have the bad luck to suffer a recurrence of atrial fibrillation 300 metres into the final selection trial.
Stay tuned to the Sail-World.com/nz website tomorrow for what we are told will be a significant America's Cup announcement.
Good sailing!
Richard Gladwell
NZ Editor
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