It took me about half an hour to sail back to the day marina, and that gave me time to reflect. My overriding emotion was real disappointment not to get the gold. Back then, you wonder how many chances you are going to get to compete in an Olympics – and how many opportunities to win a gold medal. I’d come really close, but hadn’t made it. That was very frustrating. It seems stupid now. But I couldn’t erase the thought from my mind that this may be my only chance in an Olympics. I’d had a really good chance to win the gold, and let it slip. I was so disappointed, even though, with the benefit of not really having had the pressure of expectation on me at all, I had achieved a really good result. It had been a great experience.
If I’m ultra-critical, I probably got a little carried away by the whole Olympic experience. I was a bit wide-eyed, and maybe just lost some focus on the racing. But overall I had sailed well.
Yet still the outcome irked me. So near, and yet so far. I had never believed I had come to the Games just to compete for its own sake. I’ve always been a big student of the sport and its history. I’d even confess to being a bit geeky. I could probably tell you who the bowman was in some race in 1980. I’ve always watched videos of old Olympic Games, read copiously about the gold medallists. It was always my ambition to try to emulate some of these people. So, for me, it was always the case that qualification for the Olympics was about trying to win a medal, preferably a gold. I wasn’t really interested in the blazer or the badges. Sure, those things were a novelty then, and exciting. But they weren’t what it was about.
As I’ve said previously, you constantly hear this old adage that it’s not about the winning, but about the taking part. I must stress that I fully agree this is the right message to give to young people starting out – that they should enjoy it first and foremost. But to me, as soon as I took it seriously as a career, then it was all about winning. I wasn’t interested in anything else.
Only gradually did I accept that, as one experienced sailor told me when I returned home, failing to win the gold was ‘probably the best thing that could have happened to you’. Deep down, I knew that I still had a lot to learn, and a long way to go.
After being disqualified in that finale, I had stayed out to watch the race take place. Robert Scheidt had no need to do so. He sailed straight back in, because he knew he’d won, regardless. I couldn’t even be certain that the silver was mine. If the Norwegian competitor, Peer Moberg, had done really well, he could have relegated me to the bronze position, and the feeling would have been even worse. Fortunately he didn’t.
After Robert and I had been disqualified from the last race, Moberg had sailed up to me and said: ‘Thank you very much. Now I can win the silver medal.’ I didn’t think it was a particularly sporting thing to say. To my amusement, he went on to sail a terrible race and had to settle for bronze.
When I returned to the dock, it was great to see some friendly faces although only a few people were allowed on to the day marina. I received a great response from my teammates and that meant a lot, because there was still a residue of disappointment within me; still a feeling lingered that I’d somehow let everyone down. That reception lifted me. I suddenly started to feel a bit better about things. I came to realise that winning a silver at that age was really some achievement. It took me a while to go through drug control, before meeting up with my parents, who had been out on the spectator boat. They had watched the racing with Robert Scheidt’s parents, of all people. The four of them actually got on really well.
At that age, to have my parents out in America supporting me was really crucial. Not that I had spent too much time with them. I was busy being dragged around doing interviews, and felt really bad because there was so little time to see them. They had put in so much effort into helping me get so far, and probably felt they deserved more attention. They and Fleur had rented a place out there since well before the start of the Olympics.
The non-sailing media had materialised, in part because there wasn’t really very much going on anywhere else. That’s what happens at Olympics. The British press, like prospectors in the Old West, congregate wherever there may be gold. With no sign of a medal rush back in the Atlanta area, there was a realisation that there were some sailors doing well, with a chance of gold, elsewhere in Georgia. The non-sailing media’s arrival was something of a shock because, up to then, we had been in our own little world. We had definitely felt cut off from the rest of the Games in which the dominant figure had been the American, Michael Johnson. He had proved himself an outstanding sportsman by becoming the first athlete in history to win both the 200mand 400m at a single Olympics, and went on to add a third gold medal in the 4 × 400m relay. Those Games will, sadly, also be remembered as those when a terrorist bomb in the Centennial Olympic Park killed one spectator and wounded 110 others.
Despite the British optimism created by three previous Olympics, just one gold medal-winning performance by the coxless pair, Steve Redgrave and Matthew Pinsent, was a major disappointment overall.
It was felt that many British athletes had underperformed. Fortunately for Great Britain, Redgrave and Pinsent, undefeated in fifty-eight races stretching back to 1992, had prevailed in their final – the victory making Redgrave Britain’s most successful Olympian, with his fourth straight gold medal in as many Games. It prompted that famous quote: ‘If anyone sees me near a boat again, they have my permission to shoot me. I’ve had enough.’ He did return, of course.
For myself, I had every intention of getting back into a boat, with the determination to improve on that silver next time.
No doubt, many people assumed I would have been satisfied to prove something to my peers, and particularly those who had questioned my experience. But other people’s perceptions of me were irrelevant. In all honesty, that’s not something I have ever dwelt on – which is possibly one of my strengths. I simply concentrate on my own development, not others’ opinion of it. When I started with Optimists, I quickly climbed the ladder. And that also happened in my Laser career. I’d won a youth world championships; that same year I qualified for the Olympics; and now I’d won a silver. Next step was a gold.
To have pushed Robert Scheidt so hard confirmed my swift progression as an international sailor. As I’ve observed already, others were prepared to be intimidated by him. I had shown him I was not like that. I had failed narrowly, but vowed to put it right in the future. It was the start of probably the most intense period of my life, from then until Sydney.
I had sensed throughout the racing a feeling not exactly of fear, but an underlying acceptance throughout the fleet, that Robert was unbeatable. I felt very strongly that I could break the spell he had seemingly cast over the class. Indeed I had to do so if I was to win gold in 2000. That would be my focus in the intervening years.
Fitness would be my priority. I can’t stress enough how important that is. It’s one of the misapprehensions about race-sailing. People often think it’s a technical sport, when, in fact, it’s highly physical. We wear heart-rate monitors when we’re racing, and when it’s windy your heart rate will be peaking at 195. You’ll be in that zone of 165–195 beats per minute for up to half an hour. You’re really pushing yourself. Sailing in strong winds, fitness is eighty per cent of the game in terms of your result. You see guys who started off well in a race, but by the end they’re tired. They either start making mistakes, and capsize, or their boat-handling lets them down. Or they just don’t go so quickly because they’re not working the boat so hard.
My style has always been very physical in the boat, especially when it’s windy. You’ll see lots of dynamic movement, with trimming of the sheets to keep the boat moving perfectly around the waves. That requires a lot of strength and stamina. It’s a huge part of being successful and controlling the boat in the strong winds.
When I was younger, I had worked hard on conditioning myself. Though I probably thought I was fit enough, in reality I wasn’t. It meant I suffered from a lack of endurance. Mine didn’t compare, at that time, with that of Robert Scheidt, who was, as I’ve said, an incredibly tough and resilient opponent. It took me until I was maybe 22, 23 to finally get that level of fitness.
Fitness is something everyone can address. Not all possess the necessary self-belief.
I was aware that, even then, I was developing a reputation for single-mindedness, though I was a real Jekyll and Hyde character. Off the water, I was very shy. I probably didn’t have much self-confidence. I’d worry and worry, and waste ridiculous amounts of time fretting about whether I’d done things right. Was I training hard enough, preparing myself correctly? Yet, once I got on the water, something within me changed. It was as though I had downed a potion that brought about a transition in my character. There was nothing I did that changed my mental state. For whatever reason, I just switched on. It was the racing that transformed me.
Back then, on the shore, I wouldn’t say boo to a goose. On the water, I was supremely self-confident. I was a totally different person. I had the confidence to tell some 30-year-old guy who’d won numerous world championships where to stick it. It’s kind of scary now, when I think back to it. I guess it really came from a desperate desire to win, and be successful.
Returning to the immediate aftermath of my Olympic debut, the medal ceremony, on 3 August 1996, took place in the mini stadium in Savannah that they’d set up by the side of the river. As I stepped up to the podium to receive my medal, I glanced to the right. The whole of the British team were there. They all stood up, applauded and cheered, and made a massive fuss. That really touched me a lot. I hadn’t seen much of anyone else in the previous few days, because they had been concentrating hard on their own events. John Merricks and Ian Walker had won a silver in the 470. At one time, it hadn’t looked as though Britain would win a medal at all in the sailing, so there was considerable relief all round, I recall, that we’d achieved what we had. As a team we’d performed strongly considering how the rest of the GB Olympic team had done. That night a few of the top men at the BOA came down and took us all out to dinner in the old town. The precis of the message was: ‘Thank God for sailing!’
Personally, I’d had a fantastic year, but I definitely felt I had to go on to the next level, and take on Robert Scheidt and beat him.
Initially he had been helpful, but that attitude changed a little bit after it became obvious that I was becoming his main threat. He wasn’t quite so friendly. When I received the silver, he was very sportsmanlike, very complimentary. To be fair, he had been the better sailor and deserved to win. I congratulated him, as you should. But silently I was already scheming how I was going to beat him next time round. Let me emphasise, particularly in view of what would occur in four years’ time, that I didn’t dislike Robert. I had a huge amount of respect for him. I was just one hundred per cent committed to trying to beat him. That was all I wanted to do.
You try and have a good relationship with everyone. There’s strong camaraderie in sailing. But you rarely get close to the guys who you know are your main competition. There always has to be that distance. Having said that, there are a few rivals I’ve always been friendly with; in particular, some of the Kiwi sailors. I’ve made some great friends over the years. And, of course, Iain Percy and Bart Simpson have been really good mates, even through times when we were racing each other. It’s always easier to hate the competition when you’re out on the water.
Two days later, we went by coach up to Atlanta. We spent a day there, went round the Olympic village and met individuals like Linford Christie, Steve Redgrave and Matthew Pinsent. Then it was on to the closing ceremony. It was there that I got together with my first real girlfriend, Boel. She was a Swedish 470 sailor, and we’d actually first met back in Savannah after racing had finished. We had chatted, and I wanted to see her again. The trouble was that I didn’t have a phone number (this was before everyone had a mobile, and before texting) or any contact details. As it happened, fate intervened. In those days, all the athletes were in seats in stands and at the end of the ceremony piled on to the track. There were thousands of people, but somehow I managed to find her. It was quite an achievement.
We met up again in New York later that summer, and were together for around nine years. It was long-distance for a couple of years, then we lived together for quite a while. She was a great girl, slightly older, which was a good thing as she managed to stop me going off the rails, which I guess as a teenager was always a possibility. One of the very few drawbacks of being a sailor is that it’s incredibly hard on relationships of any kind. Disappearing for up to three months at a time doesn’t normally go down too well with partners, and like in any other sport, that degree of single-mindedness can often be very hard to live with for the other person. It’s frustrating at times as often you just crave a normal life – but then to have so many amazing opportunities I regard myself as very fortunate.
After the Games, my arrival home was a slightly surreal experience. Of course, I had an Olympic silver medal in my hand baggage and I felt a sense of achievement. But there was also a sense of emptiness. I received an invitation to Downing Street to meet the then prime minister, John Major. I was quite impressed by him. For a start, he actually knew my name. Not all politicians are as well prepared, I can assure you. I took Dad with me. I remember being very impressed at finding members of the England football team there too, following the fine performance of Terry Venables’ men at Euro ’96. They included Gazza, wearing a loud check suit, and accompanied by a minder.
I suppose, at that age, I quite enjoyed that brush with celebrity. I also danced on stage with the Spice Girls, who were very big at the time, on the National Lottery TV Show. That was exceptionally embarrassing because I can’t dance at all. It was one of those bizarre things you end up doing. And, no, I can’t say I was a fan . . .
But that couldn’t alter the fact that there was this massive void in my life. Initially, I stayed at my parents’ home, but I had no real plans. I went to see some friends who were doing the national championships in the Laser class up at Swansea, stayed with them for a while, and then came home. I thought: ‘What do I do now?’ With another four years stretching ahead of me, I didn’t really have any immediate motivation to start training again straight away. It was a really odd feeling.
Beforehand I hadn’t given it a thought. The Olympics were my horizon, and nothing lay beyond.
So, after a weird couple of weeks I decided that I should finish off what I’d begun, and complete my A levels. I enrolled at Peter Symonds College, which was where I had been for a year and half previously, but had left to train for the Atlanta Games.
I simply couldn’t make the transition back. I’d just had the experience of being absolutely focussed for the Olympics and making every minute count. Now, after being away for a year, and growing up a hell of a lot in that time, I returned to college and found myself sitting around in a classroom for half an hour while the teacher had to argue with some idiot who hadn’t done his homework. It infuriated me. I thought to myself: ‘This is just a waste of time. I don’t have the time in my life to be doing this.’ I looked at the college timetable and my sailing schedule, because by now, I had begun looking ahead to Sydney 2000 and realised there were some pretty big clashes there. Someone suggested a tutorial college in Winchester. So, I transferred to that and did my A levels there instead.
It was the best thing I ever did. It cost me some money, but I was able to fit the lessons around my training schedule. My reward was two grade Bs, in Business Studies and Environmental Science. For me, it was quite important to tick that box. It was a definite omission in my life. At least it gave me the option to go to university and study for a degree if I decided it was something I wanted to do, and have that base covered.
I suppose there was also a sense of pride. Some of my friends, people like Iain Percy, were at university and studying for degrees. In a way, I felt a bit inadequate.
Yet, already, even before 1996, I knew that sailing was what I wanted to do as a career. I never considered anything else. It would have been great to have gone to university, but I just don’t think I could have fitted it in. Not with the other priority I had: overcoming the might of my nemesis, Robert Scheidt.