Gauging the 2016 vibe at IFDS Worlds
Written by Alexandra Rickham | 21 August 2013
This year has been a quiet year for Niki and I in terms of our SKUD sailing.
We haven’t spent that much time in the boat this year but we have been focusing on some bits and pieces quite significantly over the year which we hope will benefit our performance at the upcoming IFDS World Championships.
We are just looking to really enjoy the event but also use this regatta as a marker for the new 2016 campaign. We haven’t had many events this year so this is definitely our performance regatta of the year.
We would love to keep the world title for fifth consecutive year and write our name on the trophy once again but there are a lot of new teams competing with new combinations in the SKUD, so we’re not entirely sure what they are looking like or how good they are going to be.
We don’t want to put all of our expectations on winning the Worlds because we need to also get a chance to gauge where the fleet is going as we edge closer to Rio, so that we can identify who the potential competitors are going to be at the front of the fleet.
We obviously always aim to win at whatever regatta we compete at, but the thing this time around is that we both know we haven’t spent much time in the SKUD as we have done in previous years. I think that can be quite a good thing as we have spent a lot of time in other boats which should hopefully help us perform quite well in Ireland.
Not all the top guys from last summer’s Paralympics will be competing – we don’t have any of the medal winners apart from Niki and I, but we have the Canadian team who finished fourth and a sailor who won bronze in Beijing, as well as few new combinations who are also very experienced campaigners. There are a lot of experienced sailors in the boats with just some new combinations so it should be an interesting regatta.
We have never competed at this venue but being in Ireland it’s quite likely that we will get a decent amount of breeze. There has been a lot of high pressure in this area over the summer so there is no reason why it should be light winds. We are going to gauge a few things in the build-up to the event but we know that there is going to be some tide on the course which will be good preparation and experience for us. It should be interesting as it’s always good to come to a completely different venue and learn as much as possible for future regattas.
Since the Paralympics last year we took a few months off before we got back in the boat in January 2013 and started to plan towards Rio and make the decision that we were going to carry on together. I have been competing in the 2.4mR in Florida and some other venues which I will hopefully continue to do over the next few years, just to learn a bit more and become more race sharp as we haven’t had that much racing in the SKUD.
We have also done a few training camps but have also just had the opportunity to spend time with friends and family and experience ‘real life’. We have just been trying to mix it up a bit in different classes, expand our sailing knowledge and work on things that will improve our racing in general.
Our aim is to not have a relaxed campaign towards Rio, but just very, very focused achieving things along the way.
This World Championship is definitely the start gate shall we say for the Road to Rio. I think the first major milestone will be the 2014 Worlds in Canada which is a country qualifier. In between now and then it’s just going to be about Niki and I working on our boat and ourselves and sailing different boats and gaining more experience to improve our sailing knowledge.