Most of the USA’s strongest 1980 medal prospects returned four years later (above) for Los Angeles, winning medals in every class and taking gold in the Star, Flying Dutchman and Soling; there might have been gold too for John Bertrand in the Finn had the San Francisco sailor managed to cross a young right-of-way Russell Coutts early in race 1. An extraordinary gathering of sailing talent… including two regular Seahorse columnists. This group will go on to help to shape the modern sport – with in among them winners of every major prize from the America’s Cup to the Volvo Race to multiple Star world titles. Plus that record haul of Olympic medals
from sport. The longlasting effects, both on the sport and on many humans heavily invested in Olympic success, is poignant stuff; it demands to be carefully studied by those who today sometimes lightly throw around threats of another similar ‘boycott’ of a modern Games. Bertrand, returning to Tallinn as a
coach, said, ‘I hadn’t really thought about it much until I got here again. I was expect- ing to go to the Olympics in 1980. ‘I had been here two years prior in 1978
and 1979 for the Pre-Olympic regattas and I did quite well. In 1979 I won and in 1978 I think I was first or second. So I was really looking forward to coming to the Olympics here. We were at the Gold Cup in Taka- puna when our President announced that we were boycotting the summer Olympics, so that was a bit of a shock. ‘We went ahead, though, with “selec-
tions” in Rhode Island; I ended up winning the trials and then we came to Europe. ‘The 1980 Europeans were being held in
Helsinki, little more than a week before the sailors who were allowed to would head for Tallinn and the Games. As you’d imag- ine I really tried to win those and I got a second behind Chris Law. Then we went to Kiel while everyone else (the non-boy- cotting nations) went to the Olympics. ‘But, like the British sailors, we had no
choice. We were forbidden to go to the Olympic Games.’ Bertrand is still enamoured with the
venue. ‘But I still love Tallinn… or at least I do now! And for obvious reasons. It’s a great place to sail, and the Estonian people
48 SEAHORSE
are wonderful. In 1979 I was asked to be interviewed by TASS, the Russian news organisation… ‘Back then I was so focused before
regattas that I didn’t really give interviews, so I turned them down and when the local Estonian people heard that I became a folk hero to them. That’s when I first realised the scale of the “situation” with the Esto- nians and the Russians.’ How did he react to not being able to
sail at the Olympics? ‘After 1980 I went into the America’s Cup, and eight months before the 1984 Olympics I decided to hop back in the Finn and give it a go. So I had a four-year effort leading up to 1980 and an eight-month effort leading up to 1984.’ In 1984 Bertrand won the silver medal after a DSQ in race 1 following a port-starboard incident with Russell Coutts; without that the American would have taken gold. It would be natural if Bertrand was still
bitter about the whole event, but the truth is not so simple. ‘What I am bitter about is that sport was just offered up as the very first gesture by the [Jimmy] Carter admin- istration. If it had been parcelled up with a number of other measures, economic, trade sanctions and so on, that might have been different. I wouldn’t have been so bitter, but it so wasn’t the right thing to do. ‘And there are a couple of ironies. One
is that people don’t even remember that it was over Russia invading Afghanistan. And the other is the situation in the world today in Eastern Europe, with Russia and the United States again on opposite sides of a serious political situation…
‘I guess things have gone full circle, the
question is: did we learn anything through all that disappointment and pain?’ Canadian sailor Larry Lemieux had
finished third in Takapuna in 1980 behind the two young Americans. So he too had reasonable claim on a medal that year in Russia… had he been allowed to travel. Lemieux is, however, now more sanguine, if still bitterly disappointed. ‘Assuming we had gone to the Olympics in 1980 there would only have been one American there and the rest of the world. You never know what’s going to happen at an event, but the moderate conditions in Tallinn would have suited me quite well. ‘At the time – when you are young –
propaganda influences the way you think much more than today. I thought it was simple: the Russians were evil and how else can you possibly send the people of Russia a message? Not going to the Olympics would send a message that what they were doing was wrong. ‘But now I look at it in hindsight, it was
just propaganda, all of it. The world boy- cotted because they invaded Afghanistan and what did the world do again 20 years later… invade Afghanistan. ‘We never had a choice about it. We
were just told we were not going. I used to name my boats after songs and that year there was a Jeff Walker song called Pissin’ in the Wind. So I named my boat after it, which is basically what we did for four years. All that training and then nothing. ‘Sports shouldn’t be used as a political tool. If the western world had gone to the
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