Truswell to take up RYA Youth reins

by Sail-World on 13 Jan 2009 Duncan Truswell, RYA Junior Racing Manager since 2004, succeeds Simon Wergan as head of the RYA’s Youth Programme following Wergan’s move to work for the Youth Sport Trust. In a revised version of the Youth Manager role, 30-year-old Truswell will be responsible for leading both the RYA’s highly successful Junior and Youth programmes.

Duncan Truswell admits he is relishing the challenge of continuing Britain’s unprecedented success in producing young world class sailors after being named as the new RYA Youth Racing Manager.

Born in Sheffield, Truswell has worked with the RYA for eight years in the roles of coach, High Performance Manager and Junior Racing Manager. A former Laser sailor, he spent three years in the RYA Youth Squad before attending the University of Wales, Swansea where he studied Economics and Politics on a full sports scholarship for sailing.

Last year was Britain’s most successful ever at Youth level with RYA Team GBR winning three medals - two golds and one bronze - to top the medal table at the Volvo Youth Sailing ISAF World Championships in Denmark as well as winning the Volvo Trophy for the top performing nation at that event for the first time since 1996 and the third time in total.

At class Youth World and European Championships, the Youth Squad sailors also accrued 15 medals including four World champions and two European champions while the Junior sailors contributed a further 13 medals including three World champions and one European champion.

Truswell appreciates the task at hand to ensure that success continues.

He said: 'Having worked so closely with Simon for the past eight years there is a clearly defined vision as to what we want the Youth and Junior programmes to deliver and how we can achieve those goals.

'Winning medals at Youth and Junior level is a great fillip for the programmes and an indicator of sailor development but it is not the be-all-and-end-all of what we want to achieve in terms of feeding sailors onto the Olympic programmes or helping the individual young sailors make the right life decisions for them at the right times.

'I am very excited by the challenges ahead and cannot wait to get to grips with the dual role of overseeing both the Youth and Junior programmes.'

Wergan, who has been with the RYA Racing Division since the inception of the World Class Programme in 1999, joins the Youth Sport Trust tasked with leading their talent programmes, which play a key role within school sport, as well as identifying young sportspeople for governing body talent development programmes. His last day at the RYA is Wednesday 14 January.

John Derbyshire, RYA Racing Manager and Performance Director, said: 'Simon has made a huge contribution to Youth sailing in Britain over the past eight years. He has been with the RYA throughout a period of significant of evolution and has always been passionate and highly motivated about delivering the best support to our athletes.

'We wish him all the best at the Youth Sport Trust and are extremely confident that in Duncan we have the perfect successor to take the Youth programme forward and ensure that the next period of evolution is as productive as the previous.'