#olympicsailing – The Olympic Games are, for the general public, the pinnacle of sport. More than the World Championships or other events, the Olympics are the showcase for all disciplines, the only time that many can hope to reach a wide audience, the one moment when a sport can hope to be shown live on television. Sailing is no exception.
Results in the Olympics are important. The media will celebrate, possibly to excess, any success. Media coverage attracts finance, through sponsorship and grants. More importantly, success attracts newcomers to the sport, and boosts the enthusiasm of those already involved.
This year Irish athletes enjoyed great success in boxing and sailing got its best result in 32 years. But for me, the real revelation of the 2012 Olympics was the way that some sports, especially in Britain, had developed strategies for detecting and developing athletes from outside the the community of regular participants.
Rowing in Britain, has traditionally been a sport associated with certain schools, colleges and clubs.
The most famous race is of course the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race which attracts millions of spectators. Even the Olympic rowing event was held on a school rowing lake. Elite rowers emerged from a limited number of institutions. Most adult participants attended a "rowing school". Am I alone in detecting a similarity with certain sports in Ireland?
GB Rowing decided to look elsewhere for potential athletes. This was a long term strategy, more for 2016 and 2020 than the London Olympics. They set up the Start Programme. Coaches would visit secondary schools with no tradition of rowing. The initial selection was simple: boys must be more than 1m88 (6ft2in), girls 1m78 (5ft10). Arm span must be equal to or greater than height. These candidates are then tested for leg power and upper body strength, and for mental toughness and endurance. The potential champions are then encouraged to enter a training programme organised with clubs and training centres. One third of the 2012 rowing team had emerged from this scheme, or a similar programme, Sporting Giants, aimed at detecting potential elite rowers, volleyball and handball players
A similar initiative lead to Ann Williams' remarkable Gold Medal in the skeleton event at the 2010 Winter Olympics. Originally a 400 metre runner she had a trial run on a simulator (if I understand the story correctly she was only testing the machine to see if it functioned correctly) at the University of Bath, which lead to her being offered a place on a training programme.
These schemes represent a change of direction in coaching. Rather than develop the physical capacity the of athletes who already compete in a sport, coaches seek to match the body shape, physiological and psychological aptitudes of a potential competitor to the needs of a particular sport, then teach them the technique. This may be difficult for some athletes and their parents renouncing their dreams of success in one particular sport. Mummy and Daddy may both have played hockey at school, but if their son is already nearly 6ft at the age of 13, they may have to get used to washing dirty rugby kit or standing on the shores of a windswept lake watching the boats go by! This approach also requires a great degree of cooperation between sports.
Sailing is more complicated sport than many others. Good technique and physical fitness are essential but not enough. Tactics, strategy, preparation of boat and sails are as important. Relatively simple physical tests will not reveal a potential champion. However, most sailing instructors can pick out promising beginners after only a few sessions In the same way, coaches can identify the talented improver who has potential.
To succeed any detection programme for sailing must:
− increase the proportion of any generation of schoolchildren who get the chance to discover sailing;
− facilitate the development of enthusiastic young sailors, in particular by removing or lowering the financial barriers to pursuing the sport.
At present numbers of young adults seriously racing dinghies is desperately small. Around 150 student are actively team racing in college at any one time (many of these students now spend 5 years in college). If we double this figure to include those who study abroad, or who chose not to team race, we can estimate there may be only 300 active dinghy sailors in the 18-25 age group emerging per Olympic cycle.
Many are lost to dinghy sailing as they leave school and parental financial support diminishes.We all know of promising young sailors who are snapped up by keelboat or cruiser-racing skippers. For a youngster on a budget this is the cheapest route to good sailing. However, dinghy sailing – which is what Olympic sailing is about – is the poorer by their absence.
It could be said that we only need to produce one Olympic sailor per class every generation. However, adapting a well known business principle: for every 100 youngsters who discover sailing, 10 will develop as good sailors and 1 will become an elite sailor. The more young athletes who enter sailing and work their way through the system the more chance we have of significant results.
Increasing the number of children and teenagers who learn sailing can be achieved. The example of Schull Community College is there to demonstrate how effective a school based scheme can be. Elsewhere in Europe, regional initiatives have been developed in which all primary school children learn to sail. The rationale behind such schemes are not only to develop the sport. In coastal regions, sailing is seen as an essential component of the tourism industry, to attract those who sail but also, more importantly, because strolling down the quay to watch the yachts is part of any seaside holiday. It is difficult to envisage the development of tourism based on any, or all, of the water-sports, without a minimum level of participation in the activity by local inhabitants. Local people sailing will help generate tourism revenue.
The investment required is relatively small. If a local authority can cooperate with a local club, who would already have some of the facilities, then the provision of a fleet of roto-moulded (or aluminium) boats, the instructors, RIBS and other equipment is no more a major expense than providing other public sports facilities such as soccer pitches, swimming pools etc. Imagine if all the 10 year old's in Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown, Finglas or Cork learnt to sail, as they do in Brest.
Such a scheme would greatly increase the number of children who want to sail (and also the number of parents with an interest in getting them sailing). The next stage is more delicate. At present, a developing sailor is funded directly by their parents. The notion of a club as a structure that exists to provide all the facilities for young sailors to develop is not common here in Ireland. Boats, sails, coaching, travel to training camps and events have to be paid for by individual parents. Any funding is funnelled to those who have already demonstrated that they can get results.
How many potentially excellent sailors are lost to the sport because of this financial barrier? Nearly new boats, new sails and other expenses are considered essential for success. Especially in the current economic climate the number of families who can afford such an investment, in the hope that their child can progress is limited. This may explain why so many of these young sailors come from a "sailing background". These are families in which the sacrifices needed to fund sailing have already been part of the family lifestyle, sometimes for several generations.
We need to develop a more gradual approach. Consider the policy developed by the French Federation. After learning to sail a teenager joins the local sailing centre's Sport School. Training sessions and races at a local level are organised using club boats, few of which could be considered as "nearly new". Only when the youngster is achieving consistent good results will they move on to the Club Team.
Every race now becomes critical. National ranking points are awarded for every race. Within the club the allocation of boats is decided by the sailor's ranking. If you want to sail the new club 420 then you need to be the top ranked sailor in your group. Between clubs, allocation of funding and grants depends on the club's ranking. Needless to say competition is ferocious. Only when sailors get to the very top level do they get access to new boat and new sails.
Talking with the administrator of a small French sailing centre, recently, he insisted that the role of adult volunteers was to provide facilities so that all local children could go sailing.
It could be said that there are not enough sailors in Ireland to run such a system. However, if a greater number of children discover sailing, and there is a reasonably priced development pathway, numbers will increase. Merely reducing the difference between the number of children on "Taste of Sailing " courses, and the number who are still sailing dinghies at the age of 18 would significantly increase participation levels.
A recent Sports Council announcement for sailing is a welcome step in this direction. By providing coaching equipment for training camps removes a major expense for many sailing families. Four mobile training fleets are to be used for introductory programmes. There is still a gap between introductory courses and elite training.
Maybe it is time to reflect on how we can lower the barrier for those sailors who have been introduced to sailing and who wish to work towards the National and Regional Squads. One aim would be to develop an intermediate level of training and competition in which children and parents are encouraged not to invest in new equipment, private coaching and other major expenses.
– Magheramore
