Opposite: Tuke, Willcox and Burling celebrate yet another notch in their string of regatta victories at the Rio Test Event. Emirates TNZ’s Cup helmsman Burling does the honours (above) leaping off Dongfeng at the Auckland restart of the Volvo race. Willcox’s own sailing lineage is immaculate, his father winning the Half Ton Cup in 1977 (by 1pt) on his new Farr-designed centreboarder Gunboat Rangiri (top). Willcox, laptop plus Team GBR branding (right) while the New Zealander coached the British team from 1997 to 2008
they have a great way of switching on and switching off at will. They can work really hard and play really hard on the same day. ‘Similarly, when they have setbacks they acknowledge them, extract the lessons and move on without dwelling on them. That ability to switch is a real attribute. It is quite freaky how they do it. They manage their lives really well.’
Willcox joined the pair following the London Olympics, where he coached the 470 crew for the New Zealand Olympic team. ‘Peter and Blair had a break after the Olympics and took a hard look at whether they wanted to do it again.
‘One of the considerations looking ahead to Rio was whether they could lose enough weight and sustain that. All the rumours were that Rio would be like Qingdao and to be competitive you would have to be super-light. In the end, though, they decided to stay with the 49er. And as part of that whole process they also looked at who they wanted to work with.’ Anybody who has observed the Burling and Tuke combination can’t help being impressed not just with the talent, but with the organisation, commitment and analysis they bring to what they do. There is a real intelligence at work, with intense focus and discipline to identify goals and set about achieving them. ‘They had a very clear idea of what they were looking for as they moved towards Rio,’ says Willcox. He says part of what has helped them
achieve their success is a lack of clutter in their lives. Peter’s father, Richard, takes on a lot of the management side, arranging sponsorships, looking after logistics and a lot of the support detail.
Also part of that support group is David Slyfield, who has expanded his role as physical trainer with Emirates Team New Zealand to work with Olympic athletes on
‘Every hour you spend sailing in the professional arena and away from high-performance dinghies you are regressing as a sailor. Your skillset is diminishing’
performance planning. He describes this function as helping them to figure out what it will take to win, put a plan together and see that through without get- ting distracted. ‘It is about bullet-proofing their campaigns,’ he says.
As part of this role Slyfield has inter- viewed dozens of top Olympic athletes from various disciplines and countries to come to an understanding of the mental, physical and logistical requirements for winning a gold medal. At the London Olympics his charges included Burling and Tuke, 470 women Jo Aleh and Polly Powrie, kayaker Lisa Carrington and BMX racer Sarah Walker, who between them produced two gold and two silver medals. With their strong network of support behind them, Willcox says the 49er pair have systematically organised their lives around achieving their ambitions. ‘They have their lives in the right place. They don’t own houses. They don’t own cars [a Volkwagen sponsorship provides wheels], they don’t have serious girlfriends. Their headspace is not polluted with all that stuff, leaving them to concentrate on sailing.’ Their back-up structure has been and continues to be invaluable, but one of the changes moving towards Rio has been to switch from a campaign that was driven from the support team to a more in-charge
approach led by the sailors themselves. ‘They have matured enough to completely take the reins,’ says Willcox. When it came to selecting a coach, they were equally systematic about identifying exactly the kind of person they wanted. ‘They had written a list of what they were looking for. Somebody who could upskill them, obviously, but also someone with emotional stability, previous experi- ence at Olympic level, a good understand- ing of weather, but also somebody they could enjoy time off with. They are very much into mountain biking, surfing and those sorts of activities and they knew I loved those things as well. Fitness is also part of it, of course, and I have a keen interest in that. I have also introduced them to yoga, which they now enjoy. ‘Coaching always involves many differ- ent attributes and you never get one size fits all. But obviously a key part of it is to get on well and have mutual respect. You are together in an intense relationship for some- thing like 130 days a year for four years.’ Willcox ticks most, if not all, of the boxes on the Burling-Tuke wishlist. Easy going and friendly, he is a three-time 470 world champion with David Barnes and comes from a distinguished sailing family. He was earmarked for early success when he finished third in the 1977 P-Class nation- als. The quirky P-Class is New Zealand’s indigenous, difficult-to-sail breeding ground of champions. The year Willcox won bronze the champion was Chris Dickson and the runner-up Russell Coutts. ‘There was a decent bulge of talent coming through New Zealand yachting at that time…’ Willcox went on to win the ISAF Youth Worlds with Dickson before teaming up with Barnes for an incredible run of success in the 470 class that is somewhat reminiscent of the current Burling-Tuke
SEAHORSE 33
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CHRIS CAMERON/DPPI
RICHARD LANGDON/GBR
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