After successfully making the Australian Olympic Sailing Team, Matt Wearn was on track to compete in his first Olympic campaign at the Tokyo 2020 Games.
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World number one ranked Laser sailor Wearn won selection after consistently strong results over the past two seasons including wins at the European Championships and Olympic Week in Hyeres, and second places at the Laser World Championships and the World Cup Series in Enoshima.
"I was just ecstatic with the selection," says Wearn, who is training in Sydney.
"I was really excited to be able to go and compete for Australia."
After spending four years in preparation of making the Australian team, the postponement of the Olympic Games until July 23, 2021, was a blow to Wearn.
"I guess initially when everything was kicking off with COVID, we all believed that an event that big wouldn't be affected. Then they officially postponed it and I was in a bit of shock," he says.
"Knowing that I was going to the Games for a little while, the coaches and I had such a solid plan in place of what events we were going to go do and what training we were going to do. To have that basically thrown away out the window was tough to handle.
"Having it pushed back another 12 months was disappointing, and thoughts start to creep in every now and again of the possibility that might not even happen.
"There was a little bit of relief when they announced the new dates, just knowing that you still get an opportunity to go to the Games."
He is using the time to gain a competitive edge, after re-prioritising his goals with a focus on short-term pain for a long-term gain, with the Olympics now a year out.
"I took a bit of time off to regroup. Then I just had to start building the training back up and focused on improving my sailing," he says.
In an attempt to continue training as normal as possible, Wearn and his support team used drones to monitor his performance. The footage is relayed to his coaches on shore, in order to comply with social distancing protocols.
"It was a cool excuse to get a drone up in the air and do some video, then send the video off later for some analysis," he says.
But Wearn says that the enforced downtime over the past couple of months has given him a chance to refresh his body and refocus.
"Coming off the Worlds in February the body was feeling quite tired, so having to back up and go to Europe in March probably would have been a bit of a stretch," he says.
Wearn is back training with the rest of the Australian Sailing Team after completing a training camp up at Coffs Harbour with fellow Laser sailors. The camp gave the sailors a chance to sail in conditions that closely emulate the conditions they will encounter in Japan next year.
The team is still unsure what their first competitive sailing outing will be, with prominent events during the European sailing season all but cancelled. Wearn is focusing on the positives, and is enjoying the comradery in the Australian Sailing Team.
Jack O'Rourke is a contributor to Ocean Media
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