madforsailing talks to Steve Joel

RYA Youth Manager comments on Briton's youth talents

madforSailing caught up with RYA Youth Manager Steve Joel to discover his expectations for the British at this year's Volvo Youth Sailing ISAF World Championships in Crozon-Morgat, France.
Almost before the conversation has begun, Joel makes the significance of the event to British Youth Sailing pretty clear. "We see this event as the pinnacle," he says. "Everything we do is geared towards achieving at the Youth Worlds. It is the second most important event to us after the Olympic Games".

With the French so dominant over the past three years, I was keen to know was how Steve thought the British team might do at the championships. This is not such a simple problem as it may seem. While most classes have established form, the fleet at the Youth Worlds changes from year to year, making predictions difficult. According the Steve, "we don't know who the main opposition is. As this is the first World Championship of the year we haven't had the chance to compete against any other boats that are here so we really haven't got any form coming here to the event, and that's something that always makes you cautious about setting goals and targets before you actually know where you rate, relative to every other country".

Despite this uncertainty, Steve hopes the team can do better than last year when they won just one individual medal and finished as fourth best team. "This year we are hoping to come in third as a team he says. We've got excellent prospects in the team: Mark Powell, in the Laser, should be in the medal zone, and certainly the Rawlinson sisters again and Bryony Shaw in the Mistral - we hope she should figure highly in the medal zone. Also Dan and Mike in the Hobie. With the Hobie back in the event for the first time since 1999 there really is no established form but talking to the British pairing they see the French and Italians as their main opposition".

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