Athens Gold Medalist in Camp with Queensland Olympic Hopefuls 

Queensland Olympic Hopefuls Mat Belcher, Nick Behrens, Lauren Jeffries and Rike Zaegelmayer recently filed a report on their latest training adventures:

Since we have been back in Australia for just over a month now and are already training again heavily in preparation for our next two regattas, the Olympic Test Regatta and the 470 World Championships in China, it is time for an update.

After a successful finish to our European tour (1st place for Mat & Nick, 2nd place for Lauren & Rike at Kiel Week, ISAF grade 1 regatta) we had two weeks off to rest, work and catch up with families and friends. We resumed training with a 5 day training camp in Brisbane with the added training partners from Singapore. Despite a windy and very rainy weather forecast the conditions turned out to be quite favourable with light to moderate winds.

After a couple days break we flew over to Japan where we had organized a one week training camp with the Japanese teams. All Japanese teams are extremely fast in light wind conditions whereas light winds have traditionally been a weakness of most Australians who are used to stronger and steady sea breezes.

As both the Olympic Test Event and the World Championships are expected to be light to very light wind regattas we wanted to take the opportunity to improve our skills in this area.

The conditions in Japan were perfect for this: mostly very light winds around 5 kts with ocean swell and at times very strong currents. We could not have found a better venue to prepare for our next regattas. The six Japanese teams we were training with, including Athens Bronze Medalist, were very friendly, very hospitable and most of all very fast. Most of the time we were playing catch up with them being happy if we did not finish last; the one windier day we had, it was the other way round with the Japanese teams being left behind us two Australian teams.

We kept our ears and eyes and all other senses open to learn as much as possible of the Japanese. By the end we learned that patience, smoothness and absolute precision in movement as well as in trimming are the key to light winds. Although we were a lot faster towards the end of the camp we learned that we still have a long way to go in this area.

For the next week we have planned a training camp at RQYS, our final preparation before heading over to China on the 11th August. To ensure we did all possible to achieve the best preparation for our world championships we have invited Kevin Burnham, the 470 Gold Medalist from the 2004 Athens Olympics, to coach us. Apart from further refining of our light wind techniques we also hope to get some help in the areas of motivation and regatta approach.

With these camps being schedule away from normal team training it has given us a great opportunity to further our development in light wind conditions. We will be very keen to meet our training partners and fellow competitors in the up and coming regattas.

Hope to see you all at RQ this week, otherwise look forward to catching up after our world championships in China.

From the 470 RQYS QLD teams,

Mathew, Rike, Nick & Lauren