Last summer before the big do

Summer is normally identified as the time for holiday and relaxation. This could be relevant for most in general but not for all in actual fact.

Malta’s young sailing crusaders, Sebastian Ripard and Benji Borg, are definitely in the latter category.

Summer, for them, has been a strenuous period where the demanding training programme is obviously a pre-requisite in their endeavour to attain their ambition and qualify for the 2012 Olympics where the 49er Class will be contested by 21 countries.

In July, Malta49er team were in Kiel, Germany, where they did two weeks of training with coach Kolja Volkers before moving to Travemunde to compete in the 49er Youth World Championships.

This was another good event which gave them a morale boost as they finished 13th overall out of 40+ boats and even managed to win one of the races.

September presented Ripard and Borg with another jam-packed agenda. After Travemunde, they moved back to Kiel to experience two more weeks of intense training.

The time-table was of a habitual style – just sailing, eating and sleeping.

“We were simply exhausted by the end. However, the positive aspect of this visit was that we had the opportunity to benefit from the guidance of another German coach Max Groy, a former 49er Olympic sailor,” Ripard said.

From Kiel, the Maltese duo flew down to Trapani, Sicily, to compete in the 2nd Act of their Extreme Sailing Series.

Here, Malta49er went through match-racing with the no.2 Italian team. The racing was great but also intense as the programme was made up of almost eight races daily.

“It was fun to go head-to-head with the Italians and we really pushed each other, but unfortunately they got the upper hand and beat us on the last day,” Borg said.

Sebastian and Benji then travelled north again, this time right up to Lake Garda where the Italian Championships were held.

Over 30 boats had entered and a couple of top-notch foreign teams were participating including Austria, one of the likely candidates for a medal in London 2012.

This turned out to be an event of mixed emotions. Eight races into the event and the Maltese were third overall behind Austria and Italy.

“We were right on their heels but Benji then suffered an injury and we had to pull out,” Ripard said.

“An injured knee was an unfortunate end to the event, especially when we were all set up for a podium finish. However, it was a great boost to be up there fighting with the top guys.”

In the first weekend of October, Ripard headed to Nice for the final act of the Extreme Sailing Series but Borg could not make it because of his injury.

A friend of the two, Simon Hiscocks (silver medallist in the UK 49er team in Athens 2004) was meant to race with Ripard but on reaching Nice they were informed that the event had been cancelled.

That was an annoying situation for Ripard as after that unnecessary trip he had to rush back to Milan to organise the shipment of equipment to Perth ahead of the ISAF World Championships in December.

“The boat and a whole load of equipment shipped off to Australia are all new. This we could do thanks to our sponsors and some generous individuals,” Ripard said.

Malta49er team’s pool of sponsors is made up of EC Language Centre, CISK Excel, Creative Partners and the Malta Sailing Federation.

One interesting detail in this Malta49er gruelling training programme is that all summer regattas have been raced on their own dinghy and equipment.

With regards Borg, he damaged the cartilage and a ligament in his knee, so for the next few weeks he will just be solely focusing on physiotherapy but he should be ready to continue with his training later this month for a training camp in Malta that wraps up on November 15.

There will be two noteworthy occurrences during this exercise.

First, coaches Volkers and Groy will be here for 10 days each and, second, the Italian 49er champions will be joining the local lads as sparring partners.

The World Championships and Olympic Qualifiers in Perth, between December 3 and 18, will determine 15 of the 21 places to make the 49er Class in London.

Following Perth, the remaining five candidates will qualify in Croatia next May while one spot will be given complementary to the British.