Sailing coaches honoured

Chris Gowers was yesterday awarded the Mussabini Medal at the Sports Coach UK Awards

Skandia Team GBR’s Head Coach, Chris Gowers was yesterday (13 December) honoured for his dedication to sailing and awarded the Mussabini Medal at the Sports Coach UK Awards, which recognise the often unsung heroes of sporting excellence.

Known for his interactive style of coaching and exhaustive understanding of the sport of sailing, Gowers, from North Wales, is one of the best coaches sailing has to offer.

Gowers’ personality and style of coaching has been at the core of the recent changes made within Skandia Team GBR – the British sailing team in training for Beijing 2008 and London 2012 – which have proven to be intrinsic to the team’s phenomenal successes in 2006.

Gowers has been central to developing a generation of Laser sailors for the last ten years, with his protégée, Paul Goodison, capturing the limelight by winning the Qingdao (Beijing) Olympic test regatta and the Laser European Championship this year.

For the last four years Gowers has been employed as the Olympic Head Coach, providing a calm and steady hand and helping establish the standards in the Olympic coaching team at international regattas. His area of expertise in the team has been to lead the area of rules understanding.

Despite his commitment to the Olympic programme Chris has also been involved in mentoring of coaches throughout the RYA Racing programme and until recently was involved in the Club Coaching Tutor team. It is this team that provide the training for coaches working at the grass root levels. It is his support and ideas that still form the core message for aspiring coaches and sailors.

Gowers now joins what is essentially the British ‘coaching hall of fame’ along with several other well known coaches including Troy Cooley, England Fast Bowling Coach, Cricket and Mike Ruddock, Welsh Rugby Union Coach both of which were honoured in 2005 and Sir Alex Ferguson who receive the medal in 1999.

However, Gowers was not the only sailing coach celebrating as Richard Newcombe and James Brown were also shortlisted for awards.

Newcombe, shortlisted for the Community Coach of the Year Award, is known for his energy and drive which has led to a thriving and active Junior Racing Programme at Exmouth Sailing Club which includes 35 coaches and up to 110 sailors racing in a range of different classes and levels. Newcombe was also named as the RYA Club Coach of the Year, picking up his award at the RYA Dinghy Sailing Show in March 2006.

At only 20 years of age, James Brown is already making an impact as a Club Racing Coach and was shortlisted in the category of Young Coach of the Year for his infectious passion when coaching the East Zone Optimist Squad and the Topper Class Youth Squad.

Alan Olive, RYA Coach Development Manager believes that it is essential to recognise the coaches that drive our sailors to success. “It's pretty exciting for sailing coaches to be short listed for these prestigious awards, rubbing shoulders with our National heroes like Roger Black, Sir Brian McGeehan, Sir Clive Woodward and others.

These awards not only highlight the importance of the coach in the world but also the amount of effort and passion that our sailing coaches put into developing their sailors. The enthusiastic individual that gets things done is the most important factor in any club or class and we are thrilled that their efforts have been recognised.”