2012 One Year On: From 470 silver to the hunt for 49er gold!
Written by Stuart Bithell | 26 July 2013
Luke and I were extremely happy with how we were sailing and racing going into the Games.
We had just won silver at Skandia Sail for Gold Regatta and were confident, but at the same time it was our first Olympics so there were some nerves too.
We dealt with the nerves by keeping busy really and doing things that would make a difference to our sailing.
When we were sailing we were completely focused on that and when we needed to completely switch off we did things like fishing and playing table tennis that kept our minds busy and allowed us to not think about sailing at all.
The British Sailing Team manager, Sparky, also did an amazing job of preparing us.
He put a lot of ‘what if’ scenarios to us that got us really thinking about what we would do in certain situations, helping us have the answers ready before things even happened.
This included things like all our family and friends being there and wanting to go for a drink or some dinner one night. We wouldn’t do that at World Championships or selection regattas so we wouldn’t do it at the Olympics.
People ask me to share what the Olympics was like and I always answer ‘I don’t really know!’ We went to the Games to do a job and that meant concentrating 100 per cent on the things that really mattered. Watching Usain Bolt run in the 100m was just not that important to us at that time.
After the Games I got sent a highlights DVD of all the medal winners, and I watched it all the way through three times! Then it really hit home to me just how amazing these Games were. We did have TVs in the team house and saw a lot of the medal winning performances but only seeing it altogether like this could I really feel the excitement in the build-up and how it really was for everyone else in the country.
Watching the taekwondo guy, Lutalo Muhammad, win bronze was incredible – he kicked the hell out of the guy he was fighting!
Looking back at our own achievement of winning Men’s 470 class silver is a bit weird. We knew we had secured a medal in the last race before the medal race and, with hindsight, I think we thought ‘We’ve got a medal, that’s amazing!’ But we went to London 2012 to win gold and we didn’t so there will always be a few ‘what ifs’.
The few months after the Games were unbelievable! We made sure we enjoyed all of it and were absolutely in our element. For the 18 months in the build up to the Games I’d been on a heavy diet so I was allowed to drink again, party and go crazy for a few months! We got invited to, and we went to, plenty of big parties.
There was a little thought in our heads at this time that we might not be the right team for Rio but it didn’t matter then, we just wanted to celebrate what we had done.
It was when we went back to training October time we first thought seriously about what we were going to do. It was a hard decision on the basis that we get on so well but when you put the hard facts on paper it was actually pretty easy to decide. We had never been especially awesome in light winds and Rio is expected to be light. The decision was totally mutual and we are still best mates. If the 2020 Olympics end up being somewhere that suits us more who knows we could sail together again?
I could never sail the 470 with anyone else, I needed a bigger boat and the 49er was the obvious choice. Initially I thought about crewing but Sparky and the then squad coach, Paul Brotherton, said why didn’t I have a go at helming. I was like ‘You would let me do that?!’ I’ve helmed a bit as a youth sailor and in national classes over the years but never for an Olympic classes campaign.
My crew, Chris ‘Twiggy’ Grube had never sailed a 49er before either but has a lot of experience in 470s and Olympic classes sailing. We put together our programme at the back end of last year and then went out to Murcia in Spain where there were plenty of training camps and things really got underway in earnest.
Since then we’ve done all the major European regattas and are working towards the World Championships at the end of September.
The 49er squad in the UK has always been very strong but there has never really been one pair that has been completely dominant like the Aussies and Kiwis.
We may be new to the boat but between us Twiggy and I have got a chuck of experience and we want to do something that has never been done before, namely win a 49er Olympic gold medal for Team GB.
It is going to be extremely hard work and take a lot of dedication and at the moment we are inevitably down towards the bottom end of the squad. But because of all of this our learning curve will also be steeper. Although the circumstances are a bit different I can also take heart from the fact me and Luke didn’t pair up until three years before London so Twiggy and I have already got a jump on the me and Luke partnership. We genuinely believe that within the next couple of years we can be amongst the top few boats in the world. We have got to just keep believing that.
Check out our #2012inspired sailor blogs running all this week at www.britishsailingteam.com as we celebrate the build up to the Games Anniversary on 27 July – and share your own #2012inspired stories on the British Sailing Team Facebook page for the chance to win some fantastic prizes!