Amateur GBR Sailors

Giles scott, only 20 years old at uni is hardly doing badly.  As soon as he goes full time, me thinks Ed wright may take the back seat again. 
Once Mark powell finishes his masters (or at least i think thats what he's doing) at oxford and goes full time, you'll see his results jump to the top.  And like wise im sure with other sailors.  A lot of people who get the funding are going through university and whilst they may not be picking the top spots right now, the funding can help keep them close to form in the meantime. 
Of course, there are certainly people i wouldn't put on the funding list who are currently receiving money. 

I think the gap between the amateurs & professionals is growing. All of the Finn sailors at our club will testify that the squad guys (including Ed Wright / Giles Scott) are operating on a different level to some very good amateurs in the class. Nick Craig - probably the best "amateur" sailor in the country, wasn't really able to get amongst the squad guys on a consistent basis. 15 years ago I think someone at Nick's level would have been our Olympic representative.

I think for the Olympic classes its certainly true that most "amateur" brits aren't going to get many places in the GBR teams for the Worlds & Europeans. Our allocation of places is pretty much occupied by Olympic or development squad sailors.

However (as mentioned on another forum) we have massive demand for events like the Laser & Finn Masters so its clear there's a very healthy "amateur" fleet competing at sub-Olympic level in many classes.

In the past I think potential Olympians would have been sailing in competitive, popular classes such as Fireballs, 505's and then putting together campaigns for a couple of years prior to the games.

I don't think this is really the case anymore - the squad sailors tend to stick within their classes pretty much full time (apart from occasional ventures into Americas Cup), so perhaps classes like the 505, Fireball etc have now returned to their "grass roots" sailors now the hotshots have departed into the Olympic boats?

 

Hmmm.

Mark Powell was sailing full time (when he was 8th at the Worlds), he is now off to Scotland to do a PHD.

Nick Thompson was sailing full time this year (his results have certainly improved) but is going back to do three months at Uni.

Edited by Jon Emmett

but what happens if you sail full time and do not "make it" and you do not have a degree etc to fall back on ?