News Around the World
A lonely and courageous quest but hopefully a constructive one. Having restarted the Vendée Globe nine days late Jérémie Beyou finally enters the South Atlantic on his VPLP Imoca Charal. With so many of the latest foilers either out of the race or hobbled by technical problems the performance of Charal – and Béyou displays a steely determination to avoid further breakages – as well as the Manuard scow of Armel Tripon, also trailing the leading pack, will be closely monitored by designers and potential 2024 hopefuls
key things like diet we looked at this strongly and had very good monitoring and support from the Australian Sailing Team, keeping a close eye on our strength and conditioning. SH:What about changes to clothing – and, because you are a foiling class, protection and body armour? LD:We work pretty closely with Zhik which is great. We have to wear helmets now as we are sailing faster, and I wore impact protection for a while but have stopped that as we are not getting beaten up on the boats as much now… as we improve! One of the biggest challenges about racing in Tokyo is that it is going to be a really hot event; with helmets and still quite substantial sailing gear it will be critical to stay cool as well as protected, and so we are working with cooling mechanisms there. But obviously there is a clothing weight limit and so you have to work within that. We plan to trial various alternatives this summer. SH: And then Covid hit… LD: Well… we were in our final three-month lead-in to Tokyo, with every day planned out until the end of the Olympic Regatta. So that was pretty tough, to add another 360-odd days to that calendar. We were also suddenly in a situation of not really knowing when we could leave Australia, or when we would compete against other boats. Plus we felt that we were in really good form back then and so that was a huge mental challenge. But like most people we just had to suck it up and make the best of what was unfolding. Part of that was to try to enjoy the time at home, as it is very
rare to be home in Australia for more than a month, plus have more time to work on fitness and injury prevention. There are many things going into an Olympics on your wishlist that you haven’t had time to do, so now we have time to evaluate all that, testing things and looking differently at our sail set-up, boathandling and so on. Basically anything that you can do when there’s no competition
around you… we did it. SH: At the start of Covid Australia was also heading into winter. LD: We were lucky as we have a team gym and everyone was allocated the bare minimum they needed to get through a session. So I supplemented that with a bike and weights at home, which
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carried me through the strictest part of the lockdown. The other thing is we have pretty mild winters here in Australia,
and were very lucky not to have too long a period off the water. We were able to sail but not debrief in a group, so we went home and did that via video. Here the support team really stepped up. Australian Sailing has some phenomenal talent with the other coaches and athletes, and this has benefited the whole team as for once we have all been in the same place for close to six months now, exchanging that wisdom and experience. SH: How did you deal with the unknown unknowns? LD: Everyone said to me when Covid hit, ‘Now you have a whole year to get better!’ But what they don’t understand is that whole year you have to work extremely hard, every day, and every decision you make in your entire life is for this medal and this creates a significant amount of extra stress on your body and mental processes. And so having the team around meant we could mix it up while still keeping distance among the groups – we could rock climb or kayak or play tennis or go surfing – mixing up the activities. SH:So key advice to give other athletes in the northern hemisphere now heading into a hard winter period? LD: I guess it is as simple as controlling the controllables. We have no idea what happens around the corner and so don’t plan too far ahead. Take things day by day. Do what you can. And don’t get frustrated with what you can’t control because that frustration is going to be difficult to channel. Plus use the other athletes around you, particularly if you are a solo athlete; and don’t be shy about leaning hard on the support teams around you! Blue Robinson
USA Sail on, Kevin Burnham 2020 was a tough year on many fronts in the US, not least in the loss of friends and colleagues who have had very real tangible influence on competitive sailing. Some of these unexpectedly left us in their prime when they had so much more to give to all of us. Kevin Burnham’s passing at 63 of pulmonary disease felt
JEREMIE BEYOU
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