• News

Christina Bassadone's Think Piece

Hello,
 
I wrote most of this report last night, we still had two races to go but it felt like it was all over.  We went out this morning with one goal: two bullets to prove we had it in us.  We rose to the challenge and now have a chance of 6th, with just the medal race to go tomorrow and currently lying 9th.  Perhaps putting pen to paper as it were
helped me clarify some of our mistakes and made sure we nailed it today. Nonetheless, too little too late, but some good lessons learnt.
 
My thoughts, from last night...
 
It's hard to know what to say when the chips are down, without sounding like we are making excuses or being naively upbeat.  But here goes...

Starting on a positive note, we have had some great starts.  In the boat park this morning, the race officer even came up to complement us on port tacking the fleet the previous day....frustratingly 5 minutes after, the wind shifted 20 degrees left, we were still heading right. My Father and Morgan always  tell me the start is 80% of the race, and so often that is true.  However, it needs to be followed by some good decision making and occasionally a little lucky shift helps too, both of which is where we have mostly been going wrong this regatta. It has predominantly been very close racing, with the whole pack going round the 1st windward mark within seconds of each other, and with every meter counting, any mistake however small is punished highly. Often the leaders have come from the edges of the course, where in the lighter breezes that we have seen, they have kept clear wind for
longer.  We have not kept the courage of our convictions and "played it safe" tacking, albeit way too much, up the middle of the race track particularly near the windward mark...it is not as if the wind shifts anymore by the windward mark!  In hind sight we have simply made some bad decisions.
 
It has been the kind of high scoring regatta where at virtually any stage, we could have had one great day to be back in the ball game. Although remaining optimistic and focused, it simply has not come good for us. Even yesterday afternoon, with some strong winds one would have thought we'd be right in there at the front of the fleet.
 
Three months ago when discussing our preparation and the build up to this event, we thought that strength and fitness would play a big part, as we expected some strong sea breezes, common in Melbourne at this time of year.  However, in the 10 races we have only had 2 really windy races, yesterday afternoon.  The Dutch girls made it look as if they were sailing a 470 on hydrofoils, they were that much faster than the rest of the fleet.  I wish I had a picture of Saskia or even Joe Glanfield standing next to Lobke (the Dutch crew), she simply towers
over all other crews - especially in the women's fleet.  However, that wasn't really the problem for us, having been able to give them a good run for their money in the past windy events.  Our fitness and strength due to various niggling injuries has slowed us up, something we will be working very hard on over the coming months.
The forced  break from sailing due to my bike accident and Sas's back issues in November & early December has paid its toll here.  Other teams that have still had Olympic trials and been training hard since the summer are clearly more on the ball than us.  From experience, my thoughts are that to maintain that level of intensity for a long time is hard and many teams will simply frazzle out in the lead up to the Games.  Despite a very mediocre result at this World Championships, we do not feel it will set us back in the year ahead. We feel fresh, focused and more driven than ever to come good when it really counts, 11th-19th August 2008 - The Olympic Games.

Much love,
Christina & Saskia

Events Calendar