Dutch Olympic programme on course

Riding high on the success of its sailors at the London 2012 Olympics, where the Dutch Olympic sailing team won three medals, the target has been increased to four for Rio 2016. We spoke with Ian Ainslie, Head Coach of the Delta Lloyd National Team about the progress being made and the likely contenders for 2016.

In 2012 Dorian van Rijsselberghe won the RS:X gold, Marit Bouwmeester won the Laser Radial silver, and Lisa Westerhof and Lobke Berkhout won the 470 women's bronze. Many of the same athletes are still campaigning, though there has been some changes to the team. Ian began, "We currently have eight Olympic programmes for 2016.

"Two years ahead of the Games, six out of the eight classes can finish their trials this year. "If they are really dominant in their class, and if they can get a combined points of eight or less from the Rio Test Event and the ISAF Worlds in Santander, with no other Dutch sailor in the top 10, they can conclude their trials this year."

"In the RS:X men, we still have Dorian and we have a young guy from our talent academy who has just joined the squad, Kiran Badloe. They are doing really well. I was in Santander with them last week, and they are on track. In the RS:X women we have had Bruce Kendall from New Zealand coaching Lilian de Geus for two months and she is showing a lot of promise. She's very young, but got a silver medal in the ISAF Sailing World Cup Mallorca. They are a couple of young sailors that we took a bet on last year to give them a go, and they are doing really well."

"In the Laser Radial Marit Bouwmeester was struggling last year with no coach but now we have got Jaap Zielhuis coaching her, a very experienced Finn sailor, and they are back on track. She's now doing really well."

"Finn sailor, Pieter-Jan Postma came to us with an idea that he wanted to do the Volvo Ocean Race and an Olympic programme, so we gave him the opportunity to do the Volvo try out with Team Brunel. They will actually they tell him the decision in two weeks time, whether he is on the boat or not. And as everyone knows PJ is a special case, slightly mad, but if anyone can do it, then he probably can. We wish him the luck to get on the boat but it will be a loss for us as I think it reduces his chances of getting a medal in Rio. He's here sailing of course, and he just got a top 10 in the Europeans with very little training. In fact it was just one week in Hyères, which he won. That was a big, big milestone for him to win an event."

"In the Lasers we have Rutger van Schaardenburg and Nicholas Heiner and they are coached by Dan Slater, another Finn sailor, and they are both doing very well. Rutger has had a fantastic year. He's been no worse than fourth at any of the events he has been at, including the worlds. So he's doing really well. Nicholas is making big steps. Like many of the classes, they have the chance to finish their 2016 trials this year."

"The Nacra 17s have had a bit of tough season so far with an injury to one of the sailors, Mandy Mulder, and there's been a bit of a change to the combinations so they haven't yet put together a good series this year and we hope they can do something here. Last year they were in the top three countries, but now there's a whole lot of new sailors in the class like Darren Bundock and Iker Martinez, and everyone is stepping up so we've got to make another jump, to try to stay ahead. And then there are the British and the French. The French are basically the pace makers at the moment."

"In the 470 women we have two young teams. The team that has doing well right now is Michelle Broekhuizen and Marieke Jongens. Michelle switched from the Laser Radial exactly one year ago. They were fifth in Hyères. Also we have Afrodite Kyranakou and Anneloes van Veen. We're pretty pleased with the progress they are making. Together with their coach they are working together really well."

"We purposely made the trials for the 470 women and Nacra 17 longer. They can't finish their trials this year because we see more opportunities for them working together for longer so their trials will only start next year."

"Last time around we did the same system but it was one year later, and then we had two sailors achieve that and that was Dorien and Marit, who won gold and silver. One other team just missed it."

"It's early in the cycle but the idea is to get the ones that are clearly dominant and get them down to preparing for the Olympics, so they don't have to gain weight and all these things just to win the trials."

In addition, the FX women's team, which is not being sailed in the Delta Lloyd Regatta, is showing a lot of promise. "We introduced a change in the squad just before Palma, but we also had injury and an illness in the team, but one team were fourth in the two world cups so far this year. That was actually their first regattas together. And there's a lot to gain there still. The whole fleet is going to really improve a lot and we need to stay ahead of the developments."

Ian expects that two or three of the teams will conclude their trials this year.

The other two Olympic classes, the 49er and the 470 men are not at a high enough level for support on the national team. "We look at how much money we have and we look at how many medals can we win for that money. There are still Dutch guys sailing in those classes but they are not in the National team. It's quite a high standard, and if the programme is at a level where its doubtful we can qualify the country then we definitely have to stop, so we just try to put money in where we think we can medal. We're investors and we have to come back with the maximum amount of medals for the money we are given."

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