Wrigley admits time is not on his side in Olympic pursuit

By Tom Masters

Hereford sailing star Martin Wrigley admits that time is not on his side with new partner Bettine Harris after the pair struggled in the Olympic Test Event in Marseille.

Wrigley, 26, played a big part in the preparation for Chris Grube and Luke Patience in Tokyo but did not compete himself and was eyeing up Paris in the mixed 470 class with Eilidh McIntyre before her retirement earlier this year.

Now alongside 20-year-old Harris, the pair have work to do to make Paris, after sailing for the first time in February.

And at the Olympic Test Event in Marseille, a year out from the real thing, the duo finished 13th, leaving Wrigley frustrated.

He said: “We are obviously disappointed; we spent the month out here just trying to get more time under our belts because we are such a new team with not much experience between us.

“We are almost playing catch-up, but we have started to see some real progression this month, so it has been a bit of a hard pill to swallow this week.

“It has been a really good experience to have, despite not one you maybe want to have.

“We have a week off and then we get cracking, we will head to Belgium for a week and do some preparation for the Hague for next month’s World Championships.

“If we are to qualify next year, there is a lot to be taken from the style of racing out here compared to normal – there are a lot fewer boats with only one per nation.”

Having played such a major behind the scenes role in Patience and Grube’s fifth place finish at the last Olympics, Wrigley is desperate to make his own Olympic debut.

After McIntyre’s departure though, he is honest that Los Angeles 2028 may be a more realistic target than Paris in a year’s time.

“It was really nice last cycle to be such a big part of Twiggy’s (Chris Grube’s) campaign, but I guess towards the end I was looking forward to the opportunity to run my own campaign and try and go to the Olympics myself," he added.

“I think with the setback of Eilidh stopping earlier this year, I have been really motivated to just try to get to an Olympics as quickly as possible.

“It has been a really good few months with Bettine though and we have set our sights on the next Olympics, so we are just trying to become a force to be reckoned with next cycle and see what we can do this time around.

“We have got very different challenges we are facing, we are not a very experienced team now, so we are trying to make up for that, that is where the big focus has been for me which is probably quite different from how it was before.

“I think it will be an aspect but as in every double handed boat, it always comes down to the teamwork, so we just need to try and become the best team we can be and that is quite the task, so we will see how we get on."

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