News Around the World


SPAIN Silver wedding August 2017 in Barcelona will always be remembered for the tragedy of Las Ramblas, made extra poignant for our sailors as a few weeks before many of us had been in the same city enjoying a celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Barcelona 1992 Olympic Games. Given more recent events in the city it is tempting to put that celebration to one side, but surely to do that means we have lost the fight against these worthless ‘people’? 1992 was the first and only time the Olympic Games have taken


place in Spain – bringing major change and leaving indelible traces. The works needed to prepare the city and the construction of the sports facilities radically altered Barcelona and entirely reshaped its coastline. Before 1992 the area approaching the seafront was a derelict industrial zone separated from the city centre by rusting train tracks which together formed a grim barrier to the beaches. Since the Olympic redevelopment 25 years ago visitor numbers


to the city have increased every year and today Barcelona is one of the most popular cities in Europe to visit. The Barcelona Games also allowed sailing and the other sports


to be together at the main venue. Many Games have the sailing far from the organising city – in Barcelona the Olympic Village was 300m from the port. A luxury fondly recalled by competitors. However, for us the big story still is that at the 1992 Olympic


regatta Spanish sailors won five medals. Sailing contributed four of the 13 Spanish gold medals, thanks to victories by Luis Doreste and Domingo Manrique (Flying Dutchman), Jordi Calafat and Fran- cisco Sánchez Luna (470), José María van der Ploeg (Finn) and the mythical Theresa Zabell and Patricia Guerra (470), in addition to the silver of Natàlia Via-Dufresne in the Europe. And after Barcelona Spain’s roll of sailing medals continued to


grow with a current tally of 13 golds – meaning that sailing remains historically the country’s most successful Olympic sport. In addition to the celebrations of the 25th anniversary of the


Games in Barcelona, the Spanish Council of Sports wanted to hold a special event in Mallorca to pay homage to the 1992 sailing team. Among an illustrious gathering, Theresa Zabell, who in Barcelona


won her first of two Olympic golds, remembered the camaraderie of the ’92 team, ‘but also they were days of intense stress for us, Patricia [Guerra] and I started the event really badly. Winning a medal became very difficult and we suffered daily with nerves. ‘Since 1992 we have all spoken little about what was achieved,


five out of 10 possible medals. It is a high percentage that sort of still hangs over us all today, adding to the pressure for results. ‘I hope we get over it some day,’ added the only Spanish athlete


with two Olympic gold medals. ‘I am very hopeful for Tokyo, however. I hope we get plenty of medals… especially the girls!’ ‘It is very gratifying that Spanish sport has remembered us with


a silver wedding,’ said José María van der Ploeg, gold medallist that year and now Olympic director at the Spanish Sailing Association. ‘After the stumble of Rio 2016 we are working hard to get back to the results we became accustomed to.’ One of the main players in the Barcelona Games was Luis


Doreste. There he gained his second gold after his 1984 one in Los Angeles. In 1992 he also carried the Spanish flag at the opening ceremony. ‘It was a great honour… and a big responsibility! When I entered the stadium the lights were off but with thousands of cigarette lighters glowing (there were few mobile phones then!). ‘It was very intimidating,’ adds Doreste, who went on to become


a university professor. ‘Although I had rehearsed my speech many times, when the moment came my memory went blank; luckily I had a cheat sheet written on my hand…’ But despite the brave talk today Spanish Olympic sailing is not


in a good place. Two years before Rio problems began to appear at the Spanish federation, the economic situation in Spain is poor and we are not seeing enough new talent coming through. It is hard to see much immediate cause for optimism. Someone must find the magic wand if we are to regain the glories of years gone by. Carlos Pich


18 SEAHORSE


AUSTRALIA If you are even remotely contemplating joining Luke Parkinson on a grinding pedestal onboard a Volvo 65, you had better be ready. There is a physicality to Parko that is not quite cage fighter, but more top-level back-row rugby player, with speed, strength and strategy in spades. If you were playing Luke in a rugby final I get the feeling that if you made a break for the try line, the sweet vision of scoring under the posts would start drifting into your mind before, out of nowhere, Parko tackled you into the middle of next week. With a smile. And now he is back for his second Volvo Ocean Race, this time


with David Witt onboard Sun Hung Kai/Scallywag, a new role for him in a new Volvo team. Bowman and trimmer with Ian Walker in the 2014-15 race, Luke is now watch captain, a role he is looking forward to after a campaign full of high-speed learning with Artemis in Bermuda, where he joined as a back-up wing trimmer to Iain ‘Goobs’ Jensen which quickly developed into also trimming the wing for the AC World Series events. But his ambition was always to be on the eventual raceboat, so


he approached Nathan Outteridge and Iain Percy and together they developed a crewing system where Parko could trim the headsails and fly the boat through the manoeuvres, resulting in Luke being one of the few to sail every race in the challenger series. Honing his skills in 18ft skiffs and 49ers, it had been a big ask


to gain a place in the Australian Sailing Team ahead of eventual gold and silver medallists Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen. So Parkinson applied to join the fire service, and was at an advanced stage of training when the call came from Ian Walker on Abu Dhabi – where there weren’t too many fires to put out, just a ton of hard work learning how to race the new one-design Volvo 65. Having achieved that, Luke moved to an America’s Cup campaign


with Artemis, initially focusing on the communication between the different sections of the team, where in the masses of data flowing each way crucial components can easily be misinterpreted – eating into the AC teams’ most precious resource, time. The link for Luke was between shore crew, sailing crew and the


design team, so he was heavily involved in the day-to-day operations of the boat and the team, acquiring a high level of understanding in how everything worked within the systems onboard – his area of specific focus being the daggerboard drops, daggerboard case area and interaction between the board case and the rake system. The foiling America’s Cup and the Volvo Ocean Race are radically


different beasts, for now, but I wondered how Luke’s strength, body weight and shape changed from the VOR on Abu Dhabi, through the foiling Cup campaign with Artemis, and now back again to the Volvo? ‘I started the last Volvo at 94kg, and was quite strong and tough. ‘I could do all the heavy stuff on Abu Dhabi, but in the America’s


Cup it was a different kind of strength we needed, so to prepare for that I tried to do a lot more cardio work, but all the time trying to somehow maintain the strength I had previously. ‘By the time the Cup rolled round in Bermuda I was around 87kg,


but I wasn’t as resilient and I was more injury prone, using slightly different muscles with a slightly different build. Now I am down to 85kg and trying to build the durability back up, plus be able to move heavy sails around again. The cardio isn’t required as much here – being strong, resilient and looking after your back is the key.’ After the Cup many key sailors received invitations to Volvo teams,


and for someone of Parkinson’s physicality combined with the knowl- edge gained in the last VOR his inbox was soon pretty stacked. He had kept in touch with Dave Witt, who originally introduced him to Ian Walker which led to the place on Abu Dhabi, and when Witty was pulling his team for the Volvo together he contacted Luke with the offer of a new role as watch captain. This became the drawcard, to further develop Parko’s skills, to


be more than just a trimmer, bowman and back-up driver with another team. He’s well aware the learning curve for him – and for all the guys onboard this time – is extremely steep, but he admits if he went with another team he wouldn’t have the bigger opportunity. With all teams still working on crews and chemistry, I asked him


w


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88