Highs and lows at 470 Worlds
Written by Elliot Willis | 14 August 2013
Nick and I had a lot of high points at the recent World Championships.
Towards the beginning of the week we sailed very well but we had a couple of races in what was the final series that were ultimately quite frustrating for us I’d say in terms of performance. But we finished tenth which isn't bad place to be for a first World CHampionship as a new team, and we have come away learning a lot which we cann develop to move forward from here.
I think everyone had a tough week – the scoring has been very high, which is very unlike 470 racing – so it’s been tough for everyone. But we’ll come away from it with the high points as well as the low points and try and move forward.
On the plus side, we’re very fast in a condition that, in the beginning of the year in Hyeres, we said that we weren’t very quick in. Obviously we’ve put a focus on that and have made good gains there in the 14 knot range, and have good enough speed to be able to win races in that.
Our starting for the most part has also been better, which was another weak point at the beginning of the season. The things that we’ve focussed on and identified throughout the year I think we’ve improved on, so we can then take what we’ve learned here and move forward.
We were right up there at the beginning of the week, so that’s part of our frustration, but it is 470 racing at the end of the day. We’ve both won before and I’m sure we can do it again.
We’ll meet with our coach after the Worlds and build a plan in terms of training, and look at our strengths and weaknesses, and then look at events to target that. I think we’ll be a bit more event-focussed in the coming season rather than blocks of training as we have been in the past.
It’s still an awfully long way to go to Rio. I wouldn’t say we’re over the moon with where we are after the Worlds, we could’ve been a lot higher, but also it could’ve been a lot worse! But we’ve learned and we’re still motivated to carry on and do the best we can.