Team Australia Challenge - Women's and Youth America's Cup sailors on Lake Garda
by Team Australia Challenge 9 Sep 2023 00:29 NZST
All the teams with Aussies centre © Kevin Rio / 69F Media
Team Australia Challenge is the official entry for the Youth and Women's regattas in the 37th America's Cup, Barcelona 2024.
Since announcing the national entry in April 2023 and opening applications from sailing athletes around Australia we have had an impressive roll call of some 132 leading sailors for women and youth.
The criteria for applicants is designated by ETNZ for AC37 with a youth category age of 18 to 25 and an open women's category - with women eligible to compete in both if they qualify.
With the AC competition being staged in the 4 person AC40 craft for each regatta, the selectors, headed by Patrons John Bertrand AO for women and John Winning for youth, had a daunting culling process over the past months. They and the selectors assessed a fairly even mix of male and female athletes from every state in Australia.
Every single valid application was rated on a matrix for their submission reviewing their application feedback, their resume and their World Sailing profile where applicable. The scoring was conducted by at least two volunteers for every entry and followed with a review by the nine-member Selection Panel.
The first-round scoring reduced the applicants to 85 who were asked to enter a personal video responding to several question. Independent voting by the panel was compiled and 44 athletes invited to complete a Deep Sphere behavioural profile, a fitness assessment and provide 2 further sailing referees.
In the third round the selectors identified 32 athletes invited to the Selection Trials Camp being staged in Sydney from September 13 to 15, with on water and off water activities - including assessment time in the all new AC40 simulator now based in Sydney.
Selectors are anticipating selecting their training squad soon after the Camp, coinciding with the 40th Anniversary of the Australia II history making America's Cup win. It is expected that the official training squad will be announced before the end of October 2023. A final team to head to Barcelona for the competition is expected in the first half of 2024 ahead of the regattas in September and October.
Women's Foiling Gold Cup - Lake Garda
Team Australia Challenge was able to gain a highly valuable entry in the inaugural Women's Foiling Gold Cup in Lake Garda on the 69F mono hull at the end of October, enabling 5 female athletes who were currently in European competition to come together as a team for Australia in this competition. The athletes reported it was an incredible experience, competing against 9 teams from 8 nations who are mostly also fielding women's America's Cup teams in Barcelona 2024.
Australia champion sailor Lisa Darmanin summed up some of the experience for the team:
"The opportunity to sail the 69f in Garda was super exciting, it was first time we came together as a group towards the big goal next year and feels like the start of something big.
It was fantastic to sail with all the other girls and discover all our strengths and weakness and learn off each other as best we can
The 69f was a great boat to kick off our foiling experience as a team, coming from different backgrounds we had a lot of learning to do but the reaching starts were fantastic and the team-work required to get the most out of the boat was critical. We had big developments in communication and what we want to work on moving forward - can't wait to take these learnings into the AC40 simulator and do more foiling racing with the other great Australian female sailors."