Madison Kennedy of Queensland and Mark Spearman of Western Australia along with Coach Ben Callard are currently 5 days in to an 8 day training period in the host city of the 2010 Youth Olympic Games, Singapore.
The sailors how are sailing Byte CII’s for the YOG spent long hours on the water during the first three days in an endeavour to work out how to make the boats go fast. The focus has been on boat speed, boat handling and trying to get the sailors comfortable in the different craft.
The sailors who have been selected at the Australian Youth Nationals in Laser 4.7’s have been doing little training back home due to the logistics and availability of quality Byte gear in Australia. This 8 day training period will end up crucial to the sailor’s development and results later in August when the sailors return to compete in the YOG.
The last 5 days of the team’s stay in Singapore will be spent competing in the 2010 Singapore Byte CII National Championship. Singapore is renowned for their quality Byte sailors and currently boasts a dual World Champion who our sailors are competing against.
So far both sailors have shown promising performances with positive results compared to their lack of experience in the Byte’s. The sailing in Singapore is very difficult with light and shifty conditions which really puts and emphasis on boat speed.
On the teams return to Australia they will go back to their local State High Performance Programs and continue to train and spend as much time as possible in the Bytes before they head in to the AYOG Team camp on the 11th August in Sydney before departing to Singapore.