Left: this was not going to be the year for seven-time JJ Giltinan Trophy winner Seve Jarvin and his Winning Appliances crew, who have now had to watch Dave McDiarmid’s New Zealand Honda Marine team walk off with the title for the last three years in a row. Not an easy thing for a proud Aussie skiff sailor to take!
and related bodies suspected otherwise. Finally the obvious conclusion was reached and, to the relief of most prospective Olympians, the Games postponed.
For ETNZ this could be a positive as it means four of their frontline sailors – Peter Burling, Blair Tuke, Josh Junior and Andy Maloney – will be able to focus their full attention on preparing for the America’s Cup. However, for the sailors, if the America’s Cup goes ahead on schedule, their Olympic preparation will also be signifi- cantly compressed ahead of the Games next July. As for the Cup, anxious months lie ahead. Nobody can predict how long borders will be closed and travel restricted. With the Deed of Gift stipulation that no racing can take place in the southern hemisphere after 1 May, the scope for a postponement is limited. A longer postponement through to 2022 would be unthinkable, but that’s what they said about the Olympic Games. Such a delay would put enormous strain on America’s Cup budgets, let alone all the logistical and design implications that would be involved. It can be assumed that ETNZ will be extremely reluctant to agree to any extension to the schedule, but the decision may be taken out of their hands. The New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, has said New Zealand will not reopen its borders until an effective vaccine is available. Most experts say 12-18 months is the earliest a vaccine could be developed and that assumes everything goes perfectly, which almost never happens.
Meanwhile, back in the here and now, Matt Steven and Brad Collins returned to New Zealand and will have at least a month in each other’s company to relive their JJ Giltinan triumph. They ‘appro- priated’ a cruising yacht belonging to Steven’s parents and headed out to a remote island to serve out their compulsory quarantine afloat to avoid infecting a houseful of flatmates in Auckland. Many others – this scribe included – had similar ideas. But the lockdown has proved more restrictive than that. The rules, intro- duced just after Steven and Collins made their getaway and enforce- able by police, are that any travel by car must be for essential purposes only – trips to the supermarket, a doctor’s surgery, hospital or pharmacy. Police added the useful advice that using cars to ram-raid banks did not count as essential business. Driving to the marina or boat ramp also fails the test. The New Zealand Coast Guard put out a strongly worded prohibition on any recreational boating, subsequently backed up by the Auckland harbourmaster, who insisted that cutting out all non-essential travel ‘definitely includes boating’. Tough love indeed. Ivor Wilkins
AUSTRALIA Stuff happens
The year before an Olympics is all about structure. It is about slotting the key elements of training and competition into place, then building on those structures, and achieving the results to create the bigger picture towards the main event. But, both in sport and life, there are always curve balls. A significant one happened on 4 March last year, while Mat Belcher and Will Ryan were training on the Gold Coast. They had just completed a great session in 13-14kt of breeze, and were sailing back into the harbour when a wave significantly bigger than normal reared up behind them, and pitchpoled their 470, end over end, with them in it.
They went from a positive session, sailing with their best equipment, to a wreck in less than 10 seconds. Their best rig snapped into several pieces, the sails were shredded and the boat destroyed. Mat spent two days in hospital being treated for con- cussion. In fact, he had fractured his collarbone, but was so knocked around he wasn’t able to respond coherently to the medical staff. This was also Mat’s first ever serious injury… so far he had managed to avoid broken bones and significant injuries, and so for his recovery he was advised that a month off would be good. But the start of their big European programme kicked off in two weeks’ time, and they thought it would be fine. When training in Palma,
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