TOP 20 IN EUROPE!

The European Championships finished last week, and I scored a huge PB!

Last year I was bitterly disappointed that at the major championships (worlds and Europeans) I couldn’t execute the same level of racing as I had demonstrated at world cups and the progress I’d made in training. This year in at the world cup in Palma I finished very well at 23rd / 144 in a fleet that’s at full strength and locked in for an Olympic cycle. This solidified the progress I’d made last year and gave me a great platform heading into the Europeans in Split, Croatia.

Pre-training gave us heaps of variability in our sailing, with expectations ranging between scorching sun and zero wind to dark clouds, bora mountain winds and big fronts. As it happens, on day one of the regatta the incoming sea breeze fought the overnight gradient breeze and the end result was absolutely zero wind, not ideal for the first day but that’s sailing! Having gotten rid of the first day jitters I started the regatta in the best way possible with a race win in the first race of qualifying! I was pretty stoked to start in such a strong position, given the challenging and unstable conditions and it set the tone for the rest of the regatta.

By the end of the week, and after 11 of the scheduled 12 races (a great effort after the wind refused to play ball on 2/6 days) I finished the European championships in 18th place! For context, last year I finished 56th so I’m really proud I was able to show up for myself and race hard.

The funny thing about elite sport is that in some ways I’m disappointed that I couldn’t be better! I feel like I left some points out on the racecourse and this is the energy I’m taking with me into the summer. This year for the first time in 5 years I will be racing the National Championships which I’m going with the goal to win, and then the focus will shift fully to the World Championships in Dublin where the goal is to break into the World Top 15…

Big goals, big summer!