“Athletes who are able to stay completely focused in pursuit of their dreams are the ones that are most likely to become champions.” – Steve Backley OBE, former javelin World Record Holder. As the competition season closes, we ‘focus’ on the champions and podium placers who were successful in their 2016 PWA campaigns. What was their focus, how did they maintain it and how will they carry it to 2017? Read on for some motivation for your own season ahead.
Words John Carter, Finn Mullen // Photos John Carter
Originally published within the January February ’17 edition.
MATTEO IACHINO – 2016 PWA Slalom Champion
My focus has been to do everything in my power to be here in this moment as PWA World slalom champion. For the past six years I have been working in this direction. I have been focusing on windsurfing and slalom training. I have trained in every kind of condition in and out of the water. I think if you want to be first in something, whatever it is, if it’s sport or your career, if you want to be at the top you need to be focused 100%. If you don’t focus on this then there will be somebody else that is more switched on than you. It is a matter of what you care about and how much you want to push yourself. I try to train in every aspect of racing. I practice gybing, starts and how to improve my speed. After what happened last year before the last event, I tried to work on my mind as well. I think it is really important as a professional sportsperson to be ready and focused with your mind. Anything can happen but you need to keep your mind clear of all the possibilities that can affect you and not stress. You have to take one day at a time. I had to learn how to keep my mental side focused. After last year in New Caledonia I learned a lot from what I experienced.
My dreams keep me focused. Since I started windsurfing when I was ten, my dream was to become a professional windsurfer. I wanted to live my dream, travel round the world, compete on the world tour and be the best one day. If you have that in your mind all the time as your goal, then when you are out of focus, you just think about that again and go back to your dream. On your equipment you need to focus on everything. When you go with a sponsor it is not just about the money like everybody thinks. You need to find the best combination of boards and sails. Maybe you don’t get paid so much money but you won’t get anywhere on slow gear. First of all you test the combinations that you have and you try to choose the best out of your possibilities. Then when you have that, you have to test the masts with the sails and the sails with the boards. When you have the perfect combination with your sponsors then you need to adjust the fins. That takes even longer because you need to test all the fins with all the boards, all the different set ups and in all the conditions. So basically you need to spend lots of hours on the water testing and training in every kind of condition to be ready and again, to be ready mentally.
You need to know that whatever is going to happen you are prepared. You need to be focused and confident that in any situation that arises you have done your homework and know exactly which setup you are going to use. If you are ready then you at least have given it a 100% chance. If you have doubts about the conditions where you don’t know if you are fast or ready or scared that you are not competitive then you are not going to be confident on the water and that will affect your focus. You could lose because of that. All year my focus has just been about the end of this season and the title. Now I will go on holidays and reset! Then I will think about 2017. Right now the one thing I cannot focus on is 2017!