News Around the World
It’s been a nine-year wait. Mat Belcher and his crew Will Ryan can finally congratulate each other after winning the Men’s 470s class in Enoshima. In the previous Olympiad the pair had flown to Rio hoping to sign off with 470 gold but had a (for them) terrible regatta to finish in the silver medal position. This time, however, their rise towards Tokyo 2020 was inexorable, with regatta win after regatta win and no sign of the chinks that had just become visible five years ago. Unlike for others the 12-month delay to the Games barely touched their performances; so for Belcher it is two golds in the class plus that irritating silver medal, plus eight (sic) world titles. Ryan must make do with three world titles plus two Olympic medals – so far. But now one of those medals is gold. If you do nothing else tonight, track down some footage of this pair tacking and gybing in moderate airs in Japan. Never was water-borne ballet so sweet
medal as long as he started and finished cleanly. ‘Probably relief’ was his first emotion after securing the Olympic
title. ‘It has been a long journey and a particularly stressful week. It wasn’t the ideal start to a regatta, so I couldn’t have felt better than locking it in before the Medal Race. In the last fleet race I had a vague idea, rounding the last top mark in that leading group when I saw Pavlos was fairly deep. ‘Hermann Tomasgaard was up with me, but I had a reasonable
points gap on him. That was probably when it started to feel a little bit more real, but it wasn’t until I crossed the line and confirmed it with Michael [Blackburn] that we were 22pt in front and had sealed the deal.’ ‘It is quite a thrill to get it done early,’ Blackburn said before the
Medal Race. ‘It has been a goal of mine to have someone win the regatta before the Medal Race because the medal races can be a bit iffy sometimes. ‘At about this time last year we pretended that the Olympics had
just finished and Matt had secured a fourth place. From there we did a review based on that concept, using the other guys in the squad to help out with their intimate knowledge of how Matt sails. ‘That review highlighted that we needed to tune up his light wind
skills. We worked on that specifically over the past 12 months, and that probably made a 20-30 per cent improvement in light wind execution and speed. That made a real difference in the 4-5kt races here at the Games.’ For Finn sailor Jake Lilley there was a frustrating setback six
weeks before the Olympics when he tore his meniscus in training, needing an operation which meant he spent four of the six weeks prior to the Games in a straight-leg cast with limited mobility. The fact that he made the startline at all was remarkable, his best result
34 SEAHORSE
a second in race 9; then finishing the Medal Race in third place was an extraordinary achievement to place him seventh overall. ‘We wanted to keep the injury under wraps because we were concerned about my ability to tack the boat. We didn’t want to use it as an excuse, or have others use it against us and make me tack more than I needed to,’ Lilley said after the Medal Race. ‘It was quite a serious operation, but the team put a lot of faith in me and helped make sure that we got here.’ Jason Waterhouse and Lisa Darmanin entered the Nacra 17
Medal Race just 7pt behind the third-placed German team, but despite throwing everything they had at it on the day they ultimately came up short with a ninth in the Medal Race, finishing their regatta in fifth… not what they wanted after a silver in Rio. ‘We did everything we could which is all you can do… and our aggressive tactics [to go for gold] at the start of the Medal Race did nearly pay off!!’ Australia’s 49er sailors Will and Sam Phillips wrapped up their inaugural Olympic campaign painfully short of the Medal Race. The brothers finished 7pt shy of qualifying after throwing everything they had at the final three fleet races. And the fact that they became the first Australian siblings to sail in the same class at the same Olympic Games was not lost on Will, ‘To be able to do it with my brother Sam was still something pretty special. Although…’ In the 49er FX Tess Lloyd and Jaime Ryan also wrapped up their
Olympic regatta before the last act, despite giving it their all, as did Fremantle Sailing Club’s young team of Nia Jerwood and Monique de Vries in the Women’s 470. And so... finally to the 470 men’s team of Mat Belcher and Will
Ryan, who in Enoshima only needed to complete the Medal Race to take gold. Nevertheless the pair put the final stamp on an impres- sive campaign by taking the Medal Race win… despite starting late
SAILING ENERGY
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