Soft Bank Team Japan: Selection Trials on board GC32s

Photos: Mike Knighton, more at SBTJ fb – Soft Bank Team Japan is making a real effort to get local sailors to represent their country. Using GC32s as Trial vessel is a great way to find out who will be selected. Below Chris Draper on the selection process, full article at softbank-team-japan.americascup.com:
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… Chris Draper: “I think we’ve had quite a few surprises. Some really impressive performances, a lot of people dug in really hard today. Some people we expected to do pretty well didn’t quite perform as we thought and vice versa. It’s been quite a contrast and a really interesting day. There’s a real core group that looks really strong and it’ll be hard to choose from there.

“I think it’s one thing for people to say they’re keen to do it but to really show that they want it when they dig in during the fitness test and things like that is enormous. There have been a few people that have shown they really really want it, which is pretty cool. It’s impressive to see how hard they push.

“It’ll be interesting for the non-sailors to see how they react to getting on the boat and also for the sailors to see how they step up on the fitness side to match some of the guys from other sports. A couple of the sailors put in some really impressive performances in the rowing test and we’ll be looking to see how they go on the grinding machine.”…
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