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Joe Glanfield and Nick Rogers

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Nick and Joe teamed up together in 1997. Nick had already been campaigning 470's for a year and had recently split from his teammate. Joe, meanwhile, had just finished Youth sailing gaining a silver medal at the ISAF Youth Worlds an event Nick won two years previously. The pair met up at the Southampton boat show and discussed the possibility of Sailing together and decided to go for a sail the following week to see how they gelled, after four days training the team entered their first national ranking event which they won scoring straight firsts on the second day.

The first problem was money, neither Nick or Joe owned a boat or had the money to by one. On top of this fundamental problem they felt they needed to sail full time in order to improve quickly enough to qualify for the Sydney Olympics but again at the time they had no funding to live off. The team needed to gain a top 20 position at the 1998 ISAF World championships to gain the lowest level of UK Sport Lottery funding, but this was only six months away and a tall order.

A huge break through came a month after teaming up in October 1997 when Nick was contacted by accountant David Cole of Chappell Cole & Co came forward offering his support and provided the funds to buy their first boat and get their training underway. David has since been a massive support to the 'RogersGlanfield' campaign not only with financial support but with advice and help with their accounts.

During the winter of 97/98 Nick and Joe spent long hours on the water often in freezing conditions, they had one training trip to Spain which was a bit of a disaster, there was hardly any wind for the whole trip and they had the car broken into and all their sailing clothing stolen. Nevertheless all their hard work paid off when they attained a 12th place at the World Championships (Joe's first senior championship) and moved onto Lottery funding.

Qualifying for an Olympic games is never going to be easy, in Sailing only one boat can qualify from a nation and there are a limited number of nations so there is also an international standard that must be met. For Sydney Nick and Joe lost the initial trials in Weymouth to rivals Chris Draper and Dan Newman by a single point. Due to the close nature of the event and that Chris and Dan were significantly behind Nick and Joe the selection committee decided to extend the trials to the World Championships. At the world championships Nick and Joe finished a personal best of 6th whilst Chris and Dan were 14th handing Nick and Joe the Olympic spot.
Going into Sydney at 23 and 21 Nick and Joe were one of the most junior teams and despite making sharp improvements to their results in the final 3 months were not a medal favourite. They managed to raise their game at the Olympics finishing an agonizing one point off a bronze medal, but in the process proving to themselves they could produce their best when the stakes were highest and that by Athens they would be a leading contender.
Over the next four years Nick and Joe won 14 medals at international events, and grew a reputation for having exceptional communication and team work, a team that never gave up and often moved into medal positions on the final day of racing.
In 2004 Nick and Joe won a medal at every international event including a gold at the European championships, the year ended with a silver medal at the Athens Olympic games.

Nick and Joe now move on in their 470 sailing with the goal of World and Olympic gold.