Oliver in Italy Success for young local sailor

In our June issue we shared the story of tenyear-old Orewa Primary School student Oliver Tiedmann, heading to Italy to complete in the Italian O’pen Skiff nationals in Cagliari and attend a training camp with Sir Russell Coutts before competing in the O’pen Skiff world championships in Rimini.

We’re thrilled to announce that Oliver won gold in the Under-12s category at the Italian nationals, seeing off local sailor Pietro Dedoni with three race wins in a row to take out the competition.

At the world championships, Oliver competed against more than 50 talented young sailors. Over 14 races he produced some excellent performances in difficult conditions and finished in fourth place – an incredible result, and up four spots from his eighth-place finish at the world championships last year in France.

Oliver’s parents are extremely proud of his results and of all the hard work he and the other kids have put into their sailing. Mum Anna says the competitions and trainings have been very intense, and the kids have shown great resilience, spending up to six hours a day out on the water in very high temperatures.

These excerpts from a journal Oliver and his dad kept (and kindly shared with us) offer some insight into his incredible experiences in Italy.

'Italian nationals

• Winning the 3-day Italian nationals (u12) was a highlight in beautiful Sardinia.

• Crystal clear waters, beautiful beaches and a powerful 'mistral' wind was fantastic says Oliver.

• Having my friends and Russell at World's giving us briefing and pep talks is awesome. Not to mention my dad, for carrying all my gear around.

• It's day two and I'm coming third in the U12. It's a huge event, 285 sailors. In my U12 division there are about 60 kids. The start lines are chaos.

• It's very, very hot and the winds are very, very light and shifty. Often it feels like 3 knots, more floating than sailing.

• It's challenging and frustrating as it's hard to sail fairly when it's like this every day. I'm trying my best, on some days it feels like luck and weight play a big part in who does well.

• My NZ team mate had his boat implode because it's so hot. He gets a new boat today hopefully. We rig our boats and have to wait on the concrete before launching. With no breeze and the heat wave it’s like we're standing on a frying pan. My friends boat, when it launched in the cooler water, the air inside his boat contracted and sucked his boat concave underneath. (That's a bad day at World's!)

• The lake is surrounded by enormous mountains, it's like sailing in a postcard. The winds are great, it comes blasting down the mountains in the morning, then shifts and goes up the mountains in the afternoon. We trained with several teams from around the world and had the best time!

• Russell spent the whole time training us and would take us straight to the Gelato shop after most sessions!

World championships

• We're all in Rimini for Worlds now and the heat wave is kicking in.

• The winning boy at the moment in my division is a Ukrainian boy adopted by Rimini. He's really good!! I'm so happy for him! If you had to have someone beat you at world's it's him you'd choose! We're all very happy and proud of him.

• Three more days of racing to go, no strong winds forecast, hopefully I can keep in the top five as they award prizes to the top five places.’

You certainly did end up in the top five Oliver – congratulations on your impressive results! Us Coasties are very proud. Thank you for sharing your experiences with us and best of luck with all your future sailing goals.