Far left to right: with five Olympic medals to his name Robert Scheidt added to his immense personal stature by returning to the Laser for Rio, aged 43, where he just missed an unprecedented sixth medal; Australia’s Tom Slingsby had a brutal experience at Beijing in 2008, arriving in China as the world no1 and finishing 22nd overall (London 2012 went slightly better); Jim Saltonstall’s switch from 470 sailor to coach was the catalyst for Great Britain’s emergence 20 years later as top sailing nation at Sydney 2000 – the enigmatic Yorkshireman heads the Christmas card list of many a British Olympic medallist; and of course among Saltonstall’s many ‘ferrets’ is Sir Ben Ainslie, the expression encapsulating how much winning matters to the most successful – and perhaps the most driven – Olympic sailor of all time
days that will be the difference.’ Ten days later he stepped onto the top step. Šime Fantela and Igor Marenic followed
a ninth in 2008 with a disappointing sixth in 2012. Fantela says, ‘We knew that we had the strength for the top three [in Wey- mouth], fighting for the medals. But our dreams ended at the protest table in the first race. Olympic Games are not only a sports event; they’re a political event.’ Marenic agrees. ‘When I think now
about London 2012 I think maybe we were in the end not ready. [Laughs]. But London helped us a lot for Rio.’ Pavlos Kontides finished 13th in the
Laser in 2008 and then won silver in 2012. ‘You are able to prepare much better [the second time], especially mentally.’ 2012 was Polly Powrie’s first Olympics,
and her skipper Jo Aleh was sailing a 470 instead of a Radial. But Aleh says, ‘We knew what to expect. I didn’t go to the opening ceremony; when else would I have a big night a few days before an event? We stayed in a house, went to the supermarket… ‘It was just us, going sailing every day
with some stickered-up boats for a change. Go out and sail the best we can, see what we can improve for tomorrow.’ They won a gold medal. Then in 2016 Aleh and Powrie started
off with a DSQ, which they fought with video evidence ‘for days’; they also had to eat an OCS. ‘What could we do but keep trying to sail perfect races?’ Aleh asks. Saved by their regatta routine, Aleh and Powrie climbed back to win silver. Malcolm Page agrees: ‘Always, falling
back onto the process was the key thing. This is working, keep doing it…’ ‘At the end of the day it’s just another
sailing race,’ Ben Ainslie says. ‘Doesn’t matter what you did before, you’ve just got to go back to your normal routine. That’s what’s got you this far.’
What can possibly go wrong? Of course one medal is no guarantee of medalling four years later. After winning silver in 2008 Zach Railey didn’t even
make the medal race in 2012. ‘I probably overcooked it a little bit,’ he now admits. ‘Somebody puts a loaf of bread in the oven and it was just perfect, then something came up, you forgot about it and it burned just a little too much… couldn’t save it.’ Food metaphors aside, he blames over-
training and peaking too early. ‘I was ready to race the Olympics in March or April 2012. My body felt good, everything was ready to roll. I should have pulled back just a little bit.’ Fellow USA sailor Anna Tunnicliffe
agrees. ‘Going into the [2012] Olympics we were tired. We needed some time off.’ After the 2008 Radial trials Tunnicliffe took a full month off to recuperate; her 2012 schedule didn’t permit such a luxury. Pavlos Kontides followed up his Laser
silver in 2012 with a seventh in 2016. ‘In Weymouth I didn’t care so much about the end result. But in Rio I put a bit more pressure on myself…’ After five Games and five medals
Robert Scheidt finished off the podium at his last Games in 2016 – but he is surpris- ingly upbeat. ‘Coming back to the Laser at 40+ wasn’t easy. For the first time I couldn’t train as hard as I wanted. I had to manage my training volume, deal with injuries, plus I have two kids at home. But I kept believing I could still do well and I believe that I did… despite not getting a medal.’
Personality counts What’s the most important personality trait to winning a medal? Depends who’s answering. ‘Be happy’ (Dorian van Rijssel- berghe). ‘Be positive’ (Lily Xu). ‘Patience’ (Nathan Outteridge). ‘Resilience’ (Mal- colm Page). ‘Team’ (Polly Powrie). ‘Com- posure’ (Pavlos Kontides). Even Robert Scheidt and Ben Ainslie,
who balanced on the tippy top of the Olympic pyramid for more than two decades, disagree; Ainslie says it’s the determination to keep learning, while Scheidt responds ‘never give up’. What’s interesting is that many of our interviewees had trouble picking just one.
Regrets Asked if they could ‘hit the reset button and do it all over again’, as Zach Railey puts it, answers also varied. Railey himself says he regrets over-training, and ‘sacrific- ing personal relationships’. Lily Xu also regrets over-training; she lost any medal chance in 2016 to injuries. ‘To keep going you’ve got to train a lot smarter.’ Robert Scheidt regrets not learning a
new speciality ahead of Sydney 2000 when Ben Ainslie took him off the racecourse to win the gold. ‘I was totally unprepared for match racing and I paid a big price!’ Others expressed regret that budgets
weren’t bigger, or over boathandling issues. Dorian van Rijsselberghe jokes, ‘I should have done swimming or running… you can get more than one medal every four years!’ Tom Slingsby concedes the Beijing failure really hurt him. But several of our sailors claim to have
no regrets, including Anna Tunnicliffe. ‘You win some regattas and you lose some, and we just lost the wrong one.’
Medal making All of these Olympic champions can pinpoint what worked (and what didn’t) at previous events. What’s harder is to extrapolate forward, to predict what would work for other athletes – or for a new venue like Tokyo 2020. Even Olympic veterans can’t buy or
think or even practise their way to a guaranteed medal. All they can do is put everything they have into each campaign, minimise the distractions and hope that doing their very best is enough to earn a spot on the podium. So if there’s any useful takeaway here,
it’s this: to win an Olympic medal in sailing, nature and nurture are both absolutely necessary. Plus a few stars have to align as well. ‘You obviously need to have a certain
level of talent,’ Ben Ainslie says, ‘but there are plenty of talented people out there. The difference has got to be: how determined are you to go the extra mile, really push yourself to the limit? ‘I was just fortunate to have the right
support – but it was a fun time, that’s for sure…’
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