Cam Lewis (left) and John Bertrand (above) during their mammoth battle to decide who would fly home with the 1980 Finn Gold Cup. As Peter Montgomery reported at the time: ‘On the incredible final beat Bertrand tried everything he could to claw into the narrow lead Lewis had at the final mark. In 30-35 knots, occasionally gusting 40, John Bertrand tacked 32 times. Cam Lewis covered him 32 times, even roll tacking in the 40 knot squalls. You had to see it to believe it.’ Bertrand and Lewis had moved up to the Finn two years previously, bringing the athleticism and new kinetics that Bertrand in particular had developed to win back-to-back Laser world titles. Together in the heavy singlehander they pushed each other to unprecedented levels of performance – and opened the door for a new generation of lighter Finn sailors who by hiking harder and moving around faster would outsail their bigger, less agile predecessors
successive years. The Gold Cup was being sailed in New
Zealand for the first time, with spectacular action in fresh 15-35kt winds. In only one race did the wind drop below 12kt. This was in sharp contrast to the light airs of Weymouth in 1979. But the same sailors came out on top. The depth and quality of the 1980 Gold
Cup fleet was an impressive line-up of out- standing sailors from around the world in an Olympic year. Larry Lemieux finished third overall, 23 points behind Lewis. Kent Carlsson was fourth, another 12 points further back. But America’s Laser Graduate Class of
1978 were in a league of their own. Lewis and Bertrand had taken world Finn sailing to an astonishing new level. The compara- tively light Bertrand had first demonstrated that with supreme levels of agility and fit- ness it was possible to throw a Finn around in heavy air with the same dynamics and finesse as racing in light airs on flat water. Hiking harder, pumping and springing
their boats over every wave, the US pair took everything that had made them suc- cessful in the Laser class and transferred it into the Olympic heavyweight singlehan- der. And then took that to the next level. Bertrand was the first modern Finn
sailor to be Gold Cup-competitive at well under 100kg, setting a benchmark of fit- ness over mass that 20 years later would be taken even further by another ‘normally sized’ sailor who built a career upon first overcoming the lanky giants of the class. The President of the International Finn
Association, and later the IOC, the late Jacques Rogge had been around Finns for over 20 years and was in a unique position to compare the greats of his own class. His comments were generous. Back in the pre- Ainslie era Rogge considered Lewis and Bertrand were at least as good as or better than the greatest names of the late 1960s: Willi Kuhweide, Valentin Mankin, Uwe Mares, Peter Tallberg, Jörg Bruder…
Aftermath – the price paid But there was more at stake than the Finn World Championship in New Zealand. A win off Takapuna would be a huge psycho- logical boost for the US Olympic selection trials in May and whoever survived that would be red hot favourite for the Finn gold medal at Tallinn in July. Sadly, the dead hand of world politics
intervened with the boycott of Moscow in 1980 and the sailing world was robbed of the prospect of something very special… when either Cam Lewis or ‘JB’ in the Finn, along with other hot favourites in other classes, were robbed of what promised to be a record gold medal haul for the USA. Tallinn in Estonia was the sailing venue
for the 1980 Olympic Games. Even today this pleasant championship venue is often remembered for all the wrong reasons. The United States-led boycott, in response to the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan, denied many of the world’s best sailors the chance to compete for an Olympic medal. Some nations, like the USA, Norway
and West Germany, boycotted the 1980 Games completely, others countries like the
UK controversially kept some teams at home – often including their sailing and rowing squads – while allowing other disci- plines to travel to Moscow where athletes could collect medals while competing against heavily depleted fields… In the annals of the modern Olympics the
political corruption of the Olympic ideals that year remains an emotive subject for many of those affected who are still with us. When the Finns returned to Tallinn
many years later for the 2013 Gold Cup the memories came flooding back for some of those now much older Finn sailors who were denied the chance to compete at Moscow. So too for some of the support staff at that 2013 event. Among the coaches in Tallinn that year were John Bertrand (USA) and Larry Lemieux (CAN), two of the best Finn sailors in the world 30 years previously. Legendary Finn sailor Gus Miller (still racing today aged 87) par- ticularly remembers the impact the boycott had on sailors in the United States. The 2013 Finn Gold Cup was sailed
from the same venue at Pirita where the 1980 Olympics were staged. Each day the sailors passed the Olympic rings at the harbour entrance and the Olympic flame cauldron where those who were allowed to compete are remembered with a plaque of gold medal winners. Both showed signs of age and neglect, a poignant reminder of a long-gone Soviet era for the country. And years later some of the ‘US Sailing
Class of 1980’ had been revisiting that time of their lives and reflecting on what might have been if politics had been kept away
SEAHORSE 47
PETER MONTGOMERY
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