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MB: The biggest area of concern for us is picking up some sort of bug travelling. Between all the venues and with my family in Hamburg, Germany, I’m flying quite a bit. I have been lucky enough never to pick up an injury, I’m either very lucky or not pushing myself hard enough… But touch wood I hope it stays that way. SH: And your ‘medal maker’ coach Viktor Kovalenko? MB: Viktor is great – we have now been together since 2001. We are both getting older and more stubborn! But my relationship with him is strong. He is a good friend, he is my mentor and my coach and I trust him a lot. We have been through a lot of tough times together and have always come through it with a lot of success. There is no better person standing by your side coming into the Olympic Games than Viktor. Seriously, how lucky are we. SH: It is a complex relationship, the athlete and coach. I remember talking a lot with Ben Ainslie’s Finn coach, David Howlett, about the challenges of working with an Olympic athlete… about fatigue and very long days on the water. MB:Viktor sometimes uses the analogy that he is coaching tigers, and so he has to be prepared to be scratched a few times… It’s true. Rightly or wrongly, the athlete is the priority. Sometimes the athlete is out of line and sometimes the athlete is not. Obviously there is always a level of pressure mixed in there and so there may be tension and disagreements in a team. The good thing about the relationships in our team is that we are so professional in our approach. We trust and listen to each other, looking to and always respecting each other’s perspective. SH: The fleet around you is full of fast sailors, what can you say of your recent performance at the 470 Worlds in Buenos Aires? MB: It was a really tough event. We certainly were not expecting to be sailing in the conditions we did. We made some basic mistakes on day one, an OCS and a mid-fleet result put us down in 33rd – but we were happy how we got back on the podium. It is not every day you have to clear weed and bushes from your foils more than 20 times each race. It was absolutely crazy – it certainly made racing difficult but in saying this it was the same for everyone. When you have won six worlds in a row… it is strange to say this but we were disappointed. Any world championship medal is amazing but Will and I have high expectations. But we learned useful lessons in Argentina which will help us going into Rio. SH: Prior to any Olympics there are always venue issues; algae in Beijing and the Nothe course in Weymouth. What are your observations of the course in Rio? MB: I really love sailing in Rio. I don’t particularly like looking down and seeing the water and worrying about my health, but if you put that aside the actual sailing is amazing. Probably the most complex venue I have ever raced in, with a bit of everything, but that is what the Olympics should be about, being the best across a range of conditions and performing during ‘that’ week. We haven’t got just one condition that will see a specialist come out on top, we have 2-3m waves offshore, plus a good planing breeze with a good rolling swell, and on the same day inshore you have flat water with shifty conditions from geographical influences like Sugar Loaf. And then the central course has very complex currents; we are looking at more than a knot from various different directions. And that is what we like… meaning the best all-round team comes out on top. SH: Have you had enough time in Rio to learn these conditions? MB: We can always do more but, with our schedule and the big international events and development in other areas, we feel happy with our programme. As the defending champions, we have certainly invested a lot of time there and we have had a lot of great performances in Rio, winning all the test events. But the Olympics is totally different. I will let you know after the Games. SH: And between now and then... MB: Just making sure we continue to stay healthy and tick the boxes; the older you get and the more experience you have the longer your list gets. I’m happy with where we are and we are still seeing improvements, but it’s hard to change something now that we are so close to the Games. It is amusing, though, to see how much attention Will and I get from the other coaches out on the water – if only they spent more time on their own athletes… Blue Robinson


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