FM: What is the British Sailing Team’s current schedule in preparation for the games and how have we been doing?
IW: The focus is currently the 2018 Sailing World Championship in Aarhus, Denmark, this summer. This is the first opportunity for countries to qualify for Tokyo 2020. Outside of this there is the normal monthly international event schedule coupled with trying to find time to train in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic venue of Enoshima. Nick Dempsey’s retirement following Rio 2016 presents a great opportunity in the men’s class for other Brits to step out of his shadow. Both Kieran Martin and Tom Squires have notched up impressive results in the last 12 months. Kieran missed a lot of the regattas in 2017 to concentrate on university studies but still managed to finish 5th at the 2017 RS:X World Championship. Tom came fourth in the World Cup Series in Miami in January this year and also won the recent Andalusian Olympic Week.
In the women’s division we have seen the return of Beijing 2008 bronze medallist Bryony Shaw following the birth of her first child in 2017, and also the emergence of rising star Emma Wilson, who at 18 years old is the reigning youth world champion and is holding her own on the senior circuit. Saskia Sills, a former youth world and European champion, will be joining Bryony and Emma on the campaign trail full time now her studies are nearing completion. In addition to this group in the senior British Sailing Programme we have another layer of aspiring RS:X sailors, supported through the RYA Pathway, who, while realistically will be targeting 2024, will have an eye on the 2020 process also.
