Skandia Sail for Gold- YNZ Manager puts charges under pressure + Video

by Sportsbeat on 9 Jun 2011 Skandia Sail for Gold Regatta 2011 Yachting New Zealand Olympic programme manager Jez Fanstone is putting pressure on his sailors to see who has the mettle to go for London 2012 glory.

Fanstone returned to familiar shores this week at the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy, as he was formerly with the British team until 2009, helping Ben Ainslie to Olympic gold in 2004 and 2008.

But this time he arrives with his New Zealand sailors ahead of an Olympic test event on the same waters in August, and showed he means business with Kiwi Dan Slater sitting third in the Finn class and pushing current leader Ainslie all the way.

And Fanstone is delighted to not just test the Olympic waters, but to put his troops through their paces seeing what they are made of with next year’s Olympics in mind.

'We’ve got 23 teams here and boats in every class as well as two teams in the Paralympic classes so we have had a busy week building up to this and getting ready for everything and it is good to get out racing,' he said.

'We came here last year and back in 2009 and it is great to sail in the waters where the Olympics will be at.

'But also this event is probably the biggest World Cup event there is going to be this year so it is good to put ourselves under a bit of pressure and to get to know the venue at the same time is great.

'We have a mixed bag so far, we have had some race wins and some mid-fleets but I will be happier with a good result at the end of the week rather than the beginning.

'What’s great to see is all the hard work the sailors are putting in is coming together now and by the end of the week we will really see where we stand – the clock is ticking.'

Investment specialist Skandia is the principal sponsor of the British sailing team.