MB: We do. A little handing on of the batten here too. We have incredibly strong depth in the 470 Class, and Malcolm is very keen to work hard to maintain that class legacy moving forwards. Obviously we can’t discuss our success in this class without mentioning Victor Kovalenko, who has now moved to a Master Coach role for us; for sure that is pretty awesome because it also gives him the ability to mentor across the whole team. Not just the national team here, but across the Pathways and State and Territory pro- grammes as well. The key areas here are for him to advise the national coaches and athletes as per their needs, and then work with Ken Lynch in the Pathways space, plus with State coaches and athletes, helping them understand that pathway to winning gold. Plus there is another role. Because Victor has such a great relationship with our sponsors and patrons, it is great to be able to leverage those skills with him diplomatically twisting a few arms! SH: Congratulations on retaining all that knowledge and wisdom… MB: Obviously that is a ginormous plus for us. Victor first came to Australia in 1997 and has been flat out with the 470s since then. He has done quite a job as the most medal-winning Olympic coach ever. We simply had to look after and hold onto that ability, wisdom and experience. Had we not succeeded in keeping Victor happy here, a lot of other things might have turned out differently too. SH: Anyone in a room with Victor always leaves that room better than when they walked in… just the way he makes you feel. MB: He is such a great storyteller, and always able to bring up a raft of ideas and concepts and different ways of looking at things, which keeps people thinking a little smarter generally. SH: We have just had a Winter Olympics, with Australia punching way above its weight. What does that say of their coaching and close support? MB: A lot… I personally don’t know much about this winter team, but we have people around us who have worked in those winter teams and they are a very tight-knit group. This is set first at the cultural level, in terms of how behaviours work on a day-to-day basis, and the expectations people have with each other and this has been a key contributor to their performance over the long term. SH: Any cross-fertilisation between the winter and summer Olympic sporting teams, in terms of knowledge, coaching and support? MB:In some ways, yes. For example our head physio was the winter team’s physio and so she brings a lot of that knowledge with her. SH: One thing this winter games has done is to remind us just how much that success on an Olympic stage lifts a nation. The smile on the face of Queenslander Jaclyn Narracott’s face after winning her silver medal in the Skeleton was something very special – every town, city, state or territory was just buzzing with that result. MB: It does, and that is a core part of what you would have seen in our strategic plan, to add the inspirational element. We are receiv- ing taxpayer funding here, and so we owe this side of it back to the country that supports us in whatever small way we can. SH:We are of course now in a condensed cycle before Paris 2024… MB: And that will be really interesting… We have the first couple of international events in Hyères and Palma in April, and some of our people haven’t raced at this level for almost two and a half years by the time those events start. That will be a major test of how their domestic preparation has gone.
I have been speaking with these athletes, and specifically asking them to forecast what mistakes they are likely to make at those first couple of regattas; critically this is all about not getting to the end of these events and then realising they were rusty in certain areas. I am pretty clear to them that I don’t want those sorts of excuses coming back to me. So just working on the key areas they are likely to lose points on, without having had that intense racing exposure for such a long period. SH: Finally… the big things in your in-tray over the next six months? MB: I always have one eye focused towards the 2024 Olympics and preparing for that, right down to the space we need on the ground there. Then looking across the general campaign plans across all our teams – what they need to do over the next two years, the details of how their training works, how they schedule events and training periods most effectively. Less time, new classes, little known venue… the sailing medals in Paris will be hard won. Blue Robinson
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