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This is the third of three articles incorporating excerpts of an interview with Olympian and now Olympic Coach, Nigel Cochrane. If you were on vacation the past several weeks, check your in-box for the earlier articles and photos in Ship to Shore. Nigel grew up sailing at ABYC, winning championships with in Canada and internationally. He competed in the Seoul and Barcelona games (Men's 470) and won several Goodwill Games medals.
Though busy with the 470s crew daily Olympic schedule, coach Nigel generously sent along his thoughts while racing was underway at Weymouth.
What is a 'day in the life' like for the sailors/coaches at the 2012 Olympics?
We are staying here at the Athletes' village and it is just great to see everyone in their country uniforms every day. It really makes you feel you are somewhere special. Everyone is very friendly and we all get to catch up and meet all together at the dining hall. The food at every Olympics is different and unique. They do their best to make food for every culture but always make it with their own so it is quite funny every Games to see what they come up with. The food here definitely has an English flare to it!
After [breakfast] we head over to the Venue which is about a 10min. walk. The security is overwhelming. They have fully armoured police everywhere ready to pull the trigger at a moment's notice. Once you pass through security and get to the boat park everyone is doing their best to try and make it just like a regular regatta but failing miserably.
I go to the coaches container for a morning briefing. We have two containers for the Canadian team that we use for meetings, gear etc. I then prep my team with any tactical or current info I want to go over before they launch and their brains are not too focused. Once we launch we try and stay race ready and sail hard down to the race course which takes around 30 min. We use this as a warm up and it helps us get used to the wave patterns and wind shifts. We tune up wind with a tuning partner, usually Chile or Ireland. After that we get to the start line and prep for our start. We have a set routine that we roll through prior to our first race every day.
Do you have any additional 'shout outs' for the ABYC membership?
Thanks so much for the chance to share my thoughts with you. It has been a great pleasure to re-connect with ABYC and give me the opportunity to thank all the membership of my generation that supported and pushed me to such a high international level. I never would have been able to accomplish what I did without the help of ABYC.
Roger Renaud, Sven Petersen and the other sailors of their generation were huge fans and would always cheer me on and encourage me every time we were at the club together. I felt I was the product of a real team effort and I had the whole club behind me. The fundraising parties we had at the club were epic and raised so much money for me. I would really like to thank all the people who showed up to those parties and a special thank you to the ones bidding on the bottle of Dom Pérignon!!! That was so much fun and it just showed the energy the club had in its support of my sailing.
I want to encourage all the young sailors at the club today to really cherish the opportunity that they have in front of them and let them know that if they work hard the club will support them and get behind them and there is no limit what they can accomplish in our sport. It has given me the opportunity to travel the world and meet so many great people.
Who will be ABYC's next international champion?
Follow Nigel on Twitter at @NigelCoach
