A tough decision...
Written by Joe Glanfield | 13 February 2014
After a lot of thought I have decided to end my Olympic campaign with Luke (Patience) and step down from Olympic sailing. Luke will continue to sail with a new crew.
It was a tough decision but I think it was the right decision for both of us.
The reason? The short version is that I began to see a mismatch between what was needed to win a gold medal and the life I wanted to live with my family whilst doing it.
When Luke and I set out to campaign together we had pretty clear criteria on how we wanted to do it, the drive for both of us was to do it better than we had done it before. As time has gone by it has looked harder and harder for me personally to do this – corporate sponsorship has been difficult to find and the conditions that we needed to train in are predominately found abroad.
At the end of the day I am a father and an Olympic silver medallist so doing a compromised Olympic programme doesn’t motivate me, likewise I am not at a stage in my life where I want to constantly be away and go broke to have a crack at a gold in Rio. Something had to give. Whilst in Miami for the OCR, the distraction of finances, programme and being able to do the right thing by the people around me was distracting me and affecting my motivation and performance on the water, I knew it was time to stop.
Luke doesn’t have these limitations, he is in the perfect place to do everything that is required to campaign hard and challenge for a gold, he is committed, talented, experienced and will be a force to be reckoned with in Rio. I have really enjoyed sailing with him and I would have hated for him to arrive in Rio thinking he could have done more. I think we have both learnt from each other and I would be pleased to help him going forward with his new team mate.
My intention is to return to coaching both within sailing and outside. Between 2008 and 2013 I gained a variety of experiences in different cultures and environments and learnt a huge amount whilst doing that. I have developed many theories both in terms of developing individuals and teams, and helping them work strategically towards a long term goal and would like to continue to develop and apply them to my coaching.
Despite the disappointing end, our year in a boat together was pretty successful and really enjoyable. There were many highlights including our first regatta together where we got a bronze at the Palma World Cup, we were actually winning our first race but capsized on the reach! Winning Kiel Week and the Santander Test Event were also high points, as well as taking a silver medal from the European Championships.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the many people and companies that helped us this year – our coach Steve Lovegrove, team manager Sparky, the sports science team, UK Sport, Volvo Car UK, Selden and Allen.
I would say I am now officially retired from Olympic sailing but I have already said that once so it wouldn’t hold any credibility anyway!