World Sailing - World Cup Finals Santander
As the titles states this was a display of world class sailing skills and all being finished in a top 10 head to head battle on the medal racecourse.
The Santander Bay racecourse certainly tested the skills as well as both mental and physical resilience of each and every sailor. Light to medium winds, flat water but strong tidal currents to contend with along with the pressures of securing a podium position provided viewers the gripping spectacle of world-class sailing.
Alongside fellow presenters Andy Rice and Saskia Clark in the SAP (Sail Tracks) studio it was down to me to analyse the sailor’s strategies and tactics and where the cruxes of the race were and then present this to an eager audience of fellow sailors or new viewers. Using the SAP Analytics, where data provides fact to the observations we are making enables the viewer to be submerged into this amazing sport even with little or no knowledge of it previously. Crunching the data to bring the true winning moves and thought processes of the sailors is something I love doing with my background being within world class sailing and coaching.
An area of coaching that I am truly passionate about is team dynamics, resilience and awareness of the fundamentals of their competition and is something I drive into www.winningattributes.co.uk
The coaches role is critical in ensuring the environment to which the athlete has to train in simulates the high pressure and complexities of a medal race course. A coaches role can easily be overlooked with the obvious and natural attention drawn to the athlete who success fills the forefront of peoples minds. As seen in many a high profile event and certainly Santander was no difference with highlights of instant recognition from the athletes. The bond, trust, respect and empathy between a team and their coach is something every organisation should strive to instil within their teams.
The coach is that background role that goes unnoticed sometimes completely unrecognised to anyone outside of the team, but the importance of the role they play is fundamental to whether a team will succeed or not. Winning Attributes experience within these environments enables us to bring exactly those attributes to organisations, teams and individuals. The power of sport is an amazing learning point and harnessing those key features, applying them in a format that can be applied to a specific team will provide an increase in performance.
A moment that stands out was witnessing my brother celebrate and be congratulated equally from him but also by his sailors. That identifies how significant a moment it was and those days, weeks, months and years of training have enabled those teams to delivering a peak performance at the right time and succeed. Seeing and supporting him go from through his own Olympic journey and world class performances to now witnessing him being able to offer that back to the new up and coming teams is very special.