Steady as she goes!

Are our sailors peaking early?

Britain’s Olympic sailing team have had another record year in 2009, following their success in last year’s Beijing Olympics – in which Skandia team GBR won six medals, four of them gold.

The squad’s string of titles this year includes windsurfer Nick Dempsey and Laser sailor Paul Goodison both winning their respective world championships, and Ed Wright securing the first ISAF Sailing World Cup title in the Finn class.

But the Royal Yachting Association (RYA)'s Olympic Manager, Stephen Park, has warned of peaking too early for the London Olympic Games in 2012. Park has coached and managed the team since 2001, through both the Athens and Beijing Olympics.

“Arguably you could say we have had too good a year this year,” he said. “We have had a lot of good world championship results, so we have to be wary of peaking too early.”

The RYA is targeting four medals at London 2012, a third of all the sailing medals up for grabs, with at least one expected to be gold. This currently looks like a modest target but other nations, especially Australia and Holland, are catching up fast after basing their pro-grammes on the British RYA model.

With 34 months to go before Olympic Games sailing begins in Weymouth, half of Park’s current squad have moved down to live and train there. It is not officially required of them, but most have realised that time wasted on travelling could be better spent on the water.

The RYA Performance Squad is currently under review with a new expanded team to be unveiled next month.