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> march 2005
2006 Report
For the first time in our sailing career we have had a season
that was dominated by an injury. When we completed our training
in Palma towards the end of March we both felt ready for
a few months of intense racing before the important summer
regattas. We had spent January and February doing some freezing
training in the U.K before heading out to sunny Palma (Majorca)
to join the rest of the U.K 470 squad. We were sailing well
through all conditions and felt as though we had a good chance
of winning the Princess Sofia trophy two weeks later. In
this time at home however, Nick had a fairly serious mountain
biking accident where he went over the handle bars and hurt
his wrist, we didn’t know the extent of Nicks injury
until we were back out in Palma for the Princess Sofia trophy
it was then that after a failed training session Nick went
and got it x-rayed and found it was broken and would have
to return home for further checks. Unfortunately after further
inspection by a specialist back in England it turned out
Nick had broken a very small bone that would need operating
on to ensure it didn’t cause future problems and this
would mean a minimum three month rest period. The news hit
both of us surprisingly hard leaving us worried whether we
were going to get anything out of the year. It was hardest
for Nick who not only had to go through the operation and
the fact that the doctor said ‘the less you do the
quicker it will heal’, but felt guilty that his injury
was setting our sailing back.
Probably the hardest thing about the whole thing for both
of us is that we had been mentally wound up and ready to
race and we had nothing else planned with our time other
then 470 sailing, suddenly we needed to try and calm back
down, focus ourselves for a later period in the season and
find something else to do with our time so we wouldn’t
get frustrated and bored. One of our saving graces was that
the two most important events of the season, the Pre Olympics
and World championships were in August and September respectively,
meaning that if Nicks recovery went smoothly we should be
able to attend. The problem was that we needed to get a top
3 result at one of them to be any use for funding or selection
purposes, which we knew would be a tough job given the amount
of time we were going to have to prepare. Nick managed to
get himself fit and well enough for us to go to the Pre Olympic
and Olympic venue (Qingdao, China) for two weeks training
in July and this proved to be key in getting us back on track.
Qingdao is notorious for its light winds, strong tides and
choppy seas making it far from what most people would call
classic sailing conditions, but it does create complicated,
tactical racing that both Nick and I enjoy. After the China
training we were back home for a couple of days before competing
at Cowes week on the ‘Team Volvo John Merricks’ Farr
45, Nick was steering whilst I was doing tactics and we were
sailing with the RYA Volvo youth keelboat squad, the racing
was fun and it was a good opportunity to do some work for
our sponsors and Skandia Team GBR.
We flew back out to China for the Pre Olympics shortly after
Cowes week, it was great being back at a big event with all
the other team members and its always exciting sailing at
the Olympic venue. The RYA’s organization and the facilities
we had as sailors were fantastic it meant we could just focus
on our training and racing and not worry about anything else.
The winds were lighter then when we were out in July and
we had about ten days to train and prepare. Nick and I worked
hard during the previous month to lose weight in anticipation
of light winds, Nick had dropped from 62kg to 60 kg whilst
I had dropped from 72 kg to 69kg. I think being light helped
our boat speed and for a lot of our rivals it is not possible
for them to get as light as this.
The racing went well and we surprised ourselves by overcoming
our rustiness and taking an early lead after the first day.
We had a setback on the second day when we scored a disqualification
for being over the start line, our first in four years! We
seemed to be able to stay consistent, whilst most of our
opposition were making tactical eras on the tide and quite
quickly opened up a lead again. Another set back came when
the race committee failed to drop a windward mark in time
for the leaders, after some lengthy protests the jury gave
the ten boats leading that race average points (which included
us) but this did not solve the fact that most of the rest
of the fleet had gained positions during the race because
of this mistake and they were allowed to keep their final
race position.
We went into the final ‘medal race’ (a race that
only the top ten compete in and counts for double points)
only needing to finish in the top 8 to guarantee a gold medal,
we sailed a conservative race and came 4th with our nearest
rivals (the Koreans) coming 7th and so won the regatta by
20 points.
After the Pre Olympic regatta we stayed in China and competed
in the 470 World championships 100 miles down the coast in
a town called Rizhao, our confidence was up after our victory
in Qingdao but we also felt mentally drained, we had been
pretty concerned before the event that our lack of training
was going to cause us to perform badly and the whole thing
had been an emotional roller coaster. We never quite fired
on all cylinders at the world championships and it is small
differences that make or break at the front of the fleet,
our starting was poor and we didn’t manage to turn
that around until it was too late to challenge for the medal
positions, we ended up finishing in 10th position with our
team mates Nick Asher and Elliot Willis winning. Like many
of the other classes in Skandia Team GBR Olympic qualification
should be a tight and interesting battle.
Once we were back in the U.K we had to prepare our new
boat for racing, we have named her Molly Jones another name
from a Beatles song (we have now had Eleanor Rigby, Sexy
Sadie, Lady Madonna, Wild Honey Pie and Molly Jones). I got
married at the beginning of October but postponed my honeymoon
till after the first ranking event and Sail For Gold regatta
(not just for sailing, it also fitted in better that way
with school half term!). We won the first national ranker
comfortably and didn’t need to compete in the last
race. For the Sail For Gold regatta we immediately put our
back against the wall by coming 5th in the first race which
always makes life hard when competing in such a short event,
fortunately we turned things around quickly and got 1,1,2,1,2
in the rest of the racing to win and I got to go on my honeymoon
in a good mood!
Next year we have a lot of championships to compete in,
starting with a three week trip to Miami in January where
we will compete in the North American championships and the
Miami OCR we then compete in another three international
regattas before the important Cascais world championships
in July. We are also hoping to climb back up the ISAF World
rankings, which plummeted to 50th because of the events we
missed this year. We are looking forward to a busy, enjoyable
and successful 2007 and wish you all a Merry Christmas and
a Happy New Year.
Joe Glanfield
(On behalf of Nick Rogers and Joe Glanfield) |
