Australia’s recent Olympic sailing success has been no accident. Our Olympic champions have accessed quality coaching from the time they learned to sail at their home club up to the work they are doing now with their Australian Sailing Team preparing for this year’s Tokyo Olympic Games.
 
It takes a team of coaches to produce an Olympic medallist.  The Australian Sailing High Performance program supports a “coaching chain” where each coach contributes to the development of the athlete at their age and stage of development on and off the water.
 
In the lead-up to Tokyo we are going to be telling the story of the Coaching Chain through the eyes and voices of our world class Olympic athletes. Each and every coach has had a role to play in the holistic development of the athlete - it takes a coaching community and linked up coaching chain to produce an Olympic medallist.
 
The Australian Sailing Team Coaching Chain series is going to look at just one of the athlete’s Club, State Institute (where applicable) and Australian Sailing Team coaches.

Australia has some of the best coaches in the world at club, performance pathway, AST and Olympic levels and Australian Sailing remains committed to advancing coaching and coach development in the years ahead.
 
Coaches are absolutely critical to ensuring Australia maintains its place at the top the world sailing tree, and our coaches must continue learning and developing to ensure they continue to develop the champions of today and into the future.  
 
Coaching is one of Australia’s genuine competitive advantages - our coaches know what it takes to win, the Australian way, on the world stage.
 
This edition of the Coaching Chain features Mat Belcher OAM; showcasing his journey to his third Olympics. Mat has helmed the 470 to numerous World Championships and most famously earnt himself a Olympic gold medal at London, alongside Malcolm Page and earnt silver at the Rio games alongside his Tokyo-bound crew, Will Ryan. Mat has been coached by Victor Kovalenko for 21 years, helping Victor to cement his nickname "The Medal Maker."

Australian Sailing would like to thank our Program Partners at the Australian Institute of Sport, New South Wales Institute of Sport, Queensland Academy of Sport, South Australian Sports Institute, Tasmanian Institute of Sport, Victorian Institute of Sport and Western Australian Institute of Sport for their support.

Get involved today, click here to find out how you can become a coach and help develop our next sailing champion.