Optimist, Open Skiff, Youth & Olympic Sailing Blog

Performance of 3 Jet Lagged Canadian sailors at the 2018 Optimist Worlds during 3 First Days of Racing Canada had 5 sailors at the recent Optimist Worlds in Limassol, Cyprus. But Team Canada was split. 2 sailors arrived in Limassol about a week in advance and prepared on site for the competition. That’s the approach that was adopted by the vast majority of sailors from over 50 represented countries. Many of them participated in the pre-worlds - the mediterranean regatta - which attracted some 132 participants in its Open/Cadet fleet. Others trained on site. Some sailors had actually arrived in Cyprus as early as mid-July to train for the championship. Why did those 3 Canadian sailors arrive so late in Cyprus? Because the Canadian Optimist Dinghy Association (CODA) had decided to run its qualifiers for the 2019 Worlds on August 19-23 in Squamish, British Columbia, just before the 2018 Worlds. In Canada, the national championship serves as qualifier for all international IODA event...

With the Canadian Optimist Dinghy Association having decided to run the trials for 2019 IODA events, including the 2019 Worlds, just days before the 2018 Worlds - and doing that 10 time zones away, the issue of jet lag came to the forefront. Jet lag is a very serious issue for athletic performance and is essentially incompatible with it. "Common symptoms involve fatigue, confusion and lack of awareness. Imagine those symptoms lasting for days as you grapple with the mental and emotional adjustment to your new surroundings" -- according to "The Truth About Jet Lag and How to Overcome It,"  https://lifehacker.com/the-truth-about-jet-lag-and-how-to-overcome-it-1575151287 As a parent, why should I subject my kid to such an ordeal - of having to compete in two major regattas, just separated by a few days, which is already inappropropriate, but in addition being separated by 10 time zones? In this particular case, the events are the Worlds - on August 27 - Sept ...