June 2023

Hello and Welcome to another team WBR update!

We have just returned home from Acapulco, Mexico where we wrapped up our final training camp ahead of a big summer for our team. It has been an exciting few months for us, and we have made great strides as a team since the beginning of the year and are on track for our plan that we laid out after the 2022 World Championships. Ahead we’ll give a brief update on what we have been up to and a look at what is around the corner as we approach the 2024 olympic year.
What We’ve been up to:

First and foremost, our team reached a milestone early this year with the purchase of our first new boat, and we want to extend a massive thank you to everyone that contributed in helping us reach this next step in our campaign. Our pursuit of our Olympic endeavors is made possible by your generosity. With the purchase of our boat we now not only have the means to compete against the top teams on competitive gear, but also have the ability to cost effectively compete in international events overseas and gain critical experience necessary for our team to take the next step this year in preparation for the World Championships and Olympic Trials. Our dream to compete in the 2024 Olympic Games in Marseille continues to rely on the generosity of the people around us and we can not thank you enough.

After a productive winter, we spent March training in Palma ahead of the first World Cup event of the 2023 season, the Princess Sofia Trophy. The event was the largest event of the year capped at 100 teams in the 49er class. After spending much of the winter making a push to improve our boat handling execution and focusing on our racing processes around the course, we were eager to get back on the water with the international fleet and made the most of our month in the bay of Palma leading up to the event. It was good to see the progress we made over the winter show in critical areas around the course, and we raced the event feeling confident in our ability to handle the boat and continued to show our capacity to position ourselves well in the fleet with the speed to compete with the top teams.

While a handful of costly mistakes left a lot of points on the board and out of the top 25 for the finals, we finished the event satisfied with the progress we experienced on the race course. We were able to put together some great races throughout the event and understand the value of being process oriented in evaluating our development. Leaving Palma we felt assured that we are on track with the plan we laid out at the end of 2022 to put us in the position to be successful in 2024. We have seen our commitment to increasing our investment in regular coaching on the water during training and the quality of our equipment make a big difference in our performance so far, and we look to continue this commitment throughout the rest of our campaign.

After arriving home in April we spent 3 weeks training at home in the ocean in Fort Lauderdale, taking the opportunity to continue to hone our fundamentals and work on our technique in the swell that we look to be critical to success in our biggest events this year. After taking a few days to recover, we left for another camp in Acapulco, Mexico, this time joining a Mexican and Chilean team as well as coach Jonas Warrer, the 49er gold medalist from the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. We had an intense and productive camp, picking up where we left off making improvements in our technique and team dynamic in the boat which we look forward to putting to the test later this year.

Looking Ahead

With the summer ahead we are approaching a critical period in our campaign. With the Olympic Trials around the corner at the start of the new year (Jan 2024), we are full steam ahead in preparation for what will likely be the deciding event for our Olympic hopes for the 2024 games. The event will take place in Miami, Fl, a venue where we have spent countless hours training and where we feel at home.

While we are still climbing the mountain of the international 49er fleet, we feel extremely confident in our team and our ability to compete. We are encouraged by the development we have seen over the last 6 months, and believe that our intimate team dynamic gives us an edge when it comes to our speed and decision making in the most competitive environments. Ultimately, we know that our chances of success are driven by our capacity to push ourselves to the limit over these next 7 months and take the most out of every training session and race that we have left. As we look to the 2023 World Championships that will take place this August in The Hague, Netherlands, we are anxious to continue to develop our racing skills as a team and show that we have that edge necessary to compete at the highest level as we enter the second half of this critical year for our team.
We hope you will follow us as we continue our campaign to compete for a medal in the 2024 Olympic Games in Marseille, France.

Upcoming Major Events

2023 ISAF World Sailing Championships _The Hague, Netherlands_August 2023 __

2024 US Olympic Trials Miami, FL January 2024

follow us on instagram @

willifordbrothersracing
If you would like to support us please send us an email

willifordsailing@gmail.com