On the Comeback (1/2)

Palma de Mallorca,

I keep having to remind myself that 8 weeks ago I was lying in a hospital bed and 6 weeks ago I was unable to stand on my left leg. I also have to remind myself where I was this time last year. Having put in the hardest year of training of my life and still seeing little to no quantitative improvements. Now two years into my full-time campaign I am sitting down after a Gold fleet (top third) appearance at the biggest regatta of my life with a slightly bitter taste in my mouth. Surely if anything speaks to the strides I have made in the past years it is that.

The Short Version

Part 1 – With a week and a half to go until racing in Palma I was finally able to hop back in the boat and start training again, my knee felt weak, and I had missed out on lots of training, but I was just happy that I was able to sail at that point

Part 2 – In the lead up to Palma I was invited to the Canadian Sailing Team camp where all the national coaches and athletes stayed together conference style and there were lots of talks about Sail Canada’s news and strategy moving forwards. Here I made the decision to act on an offer I had been given earlier in the year to join new National Team ILCA 7 coach Andrew Lewis’ squad. This means that starting from Palma I would no longer be with SailCoach. While this is sad to leave behind my friends and everyone I’ve left in Malta I am also very excited to a part of this new Canadian Team moving forward.

PART 1: The Lead Up

 

Palma has been an event that I have been wanting to attend for a long time now. In 2019 my original plans to go were shot down when I received my exam schedule and had to stay home in Kingston. The following year in 2020 my fellow racers and I had all our plans in place regatta followed by a weeklong bike trip around the north side of the island (Mallorca is a world class cycling destination and the winter base for most Tour de France teams) only to have everything cancelled days before flying due to the Corona virus. In 2021 Covid still reigned supreme causing an initial postponement and then an eventual cancelation of the event meaning when I arrived in 2022, I was chomping at the bit to finally get onto the waters of the Spanish island.

My excitement was however accompanied by a solid dose of nerves. 8 weeks’ prior, laying in a hospital bed I had been told by doctors that racing in Palma would be a long shot. Luckily for me the MRI revealed that the damage to my MCL was not as bad as it could have been, but I was still immobile. This was the first time in my life I had been inhabilitated by an injury and I honestly didn’t know what to do with myself. It was one of the most trying experiences of my life, having to sit still for weeks knowing that every step I took inhibited my recovery and took me further away from my unlimited goal. 

After 2 weeks I was moving around slowly with one crutch. After three I could very carefully take stairs without assistance. After four weeks I could walk albeit with a limp and I decided I would have a go at going for a sail on a very light wind day. I launched, did one roll gybe 10 meters off the slipway, and immediately knew I was not ready. The sail lasted less than 5 min total. It would be two more weeks till I was able to sail, and another week after that until I was sailing in heavy wind. This meant I was heading to Palma with only one proper week of sailing under my belt in the last two months.

Enroute to Palma my knee was infinitely better than it had been a few weeks before but there were still some issues. First and foremost, any outward twisting motion from the foot was still a little painful, second holding a deep squat position sometimes caused painful cramping in the quad muscles around my knee which had been inactive for so long and now had to be woken back up, and finally I still had a reasonable level of anxiety about re-injuring myself while sailing downwind. I had learned in my week of training that this combination of factors was causing me to alter my downwind style. This was a point of frustration for me as my downwind sailing was something I had worked on meticulously during my time training in Malta. Having previously been a weakness of mine and something I had put much effort into addressing, it was incredibly frustrating to think that it could have been potentially undone.

However, this was all secondary to my biggest concern. The fact of the matter was that for the better part of two months I had been bed bound, for an athlete that can have catastrophic effects on your fitness. I knew I was weak; I still had a strong base and my years of training meant muscle memory would still play to my advantage, but I had a lingering feeling that when I compared myself to how I felt going into the European Championships last fall, I was now a sack of potatoes.

PART 2: Some News

 

So I have been training in Malta with a world class training squad called SailCoach for 2 years now. During that time, I have gone from being a bronze fleet to a gold fleet sailor (top 60 or 70 in the world) and there is no doubt on the impact the folks in Malta have had on my sailing career. Working with my coach Alex and training partner Vishnu has been the opportunity of a lifetime for me and living in Europe full time has been a nonstop adventure. When I left for Malta in July 2020, aside from the great training opportunity, I was leaving Canada behind for two reasons. The first and main reason was that covid had Canada and the US on lockdown. Regulations meant that travel was next to impossible and any training that happened was constantly being hampered by the rules and restrictions imposed on us. I needed a base in which I could train year-round in many conditions and not have to move unless I wanted. To that; Malta was the perfect solution. My second reason for leaving was the lack of a well structured program. Leading up to Tokyo 2020, Canada had not qualified in the ILCA 7 class (otherwise known as Men’s Laser – after the type of boat I sail) and this meant that Sail Canada resources had been directed away from us. I knew that in order to succeed at a high level you need a full program which means a full time coach, consistent team and training environment, a long term objective and a constantly evolving plan to reach that objective. Sail Canada was offering none of these things to me at the time and so SailCoach was the obvious choice.

In the aftermath of Canada’s success at the Tokyo games in other classes, focus has since been switched back to the ILCA 7, in an attempt to right the mistakes of the last quad (the 4 years leading up to the next Olympic Games) and to raise the national team level. They have hired a full time ILCA 7 coach. He is the 3-time Olympic Laser sailor from Trinidad and Tobago Andrew Lewis. Additionally, they have named ILCA 7 as one of their focused classes for the 2024 games which means increased attention, support, and funding for the National Team.

Since he began working for Canada in late 2021 Andrew has been putting together a group of athletes to join his squad. Originally it was Tom Ramshaw who had just transitioned from the Finn (another type of boat) back to the ILCA 7 after the Finn was removed from the 2024 Olympics. After him came Ryan Anderson, Forrest Wachholz, and Fillah Karim. Early on I was asked if I would be interested in joining this team and I have to admit I was sceptical. From my perspective, I had a solid training base in Malta, with a dedicated coach and a perfect place to do all my training. I was also worried from my past experiences with Sail Canada that at any second the funding could disappear, and I would be left right back where I started without a program. I felt a sense of loyalty to my group in Malta who had taken me in when I had nowhere else to go and helped me to make so much progress in the past years.

That said, one of the many reasons I was looking forward to Palma this year was that I had been invited to the first Canadian Sailing Team camp of 2022. This was a new program that Sail Canada was implementing where they got all the National Team athletes, coaches, and some identified athletes in one place for a week of sailing, team bonding and to keep everyone up to date and on the same page about Sail Canada’s strategic direction. I was excited to be a part of the group invited. To catch up with old friends, meet new team members, but mostly to hear what Sail Canada had to say. As it turned out, what they had to say was amazing. Increased funding after the games and a long-term focus on the development of the ILCA 7 class in Canada meant Andrew Lewis had been signed as the ILCA 7 coach for a 4-year contract leading to Paris 2024 and it looked like the Canadian ILCA men would be able to have a proper full time program with an highly dedicated group for the first time in years, certainly since before my time on the scene.

Between a full-time training group and a fully funded, dedicated, and highly qualified coach like Andrew, it became obvious to me that moving forward with the Canadian Team was an offer that this time I could not let pass by. The decision was made in the days leading up to racing in Palma that I would transition from being a SailCoach Athlete to a member of Andrew’s training group. I am very grateful for all the support that SailCoach has given me over the years but at the same time the patriotic Canuck in me is thrilled to be joining the Canadian team that I believe has the potential to become some of the best ILCA 7 sailors in the world.

…to be continued tomorrow!  Watch your inbox…I’ll get to all the racing excitement!!