South Africa’s first mixed race sailing team racing ahead to Rio Olympics 2016, and Team SA are right behind them.
On the 9th of August 2016 Roger Hudson and Asenathi Jim – South Africa’s first mixed race sailing team – will begin competing in their second consecutive Olympic Games in efforts to realise their top 10 ambitions.
They seem incredibly well poised to do so following their recent strong performances in Argentina, Palma and their first place finish at the inaugural 470 African Championships in Granger Bay, Cape Town.
“We are making progress in the right direction, which is the most important thing. And we are hungrier than ever to keep working hard and get to our end goal… It feels nice to be up there with the top guys and playing their game”, Asenathi Jim says.
The Olympics are in Hudson’s genes. His father, Dave, represented South Africa in 1992. Hoping to impart their talents and love for the sport, Dave and Roger Hudson started the RaceAhead Foundation in 2008.
RaceAhead partners up talented, motivated young sailors from underprivileged backgrounds with the experienced mentors and equipment that they need to succeed in this expensive, intensive and exclusive sport. It was through RaceAhead that Roger first met Asenathi Jim.
Their fantastic results as an organisation, a team and a family testify to the incredible work that they do, and the wealth of talent that there is in South Africa when we create the opportunities for partnership, growth and success.
“It’s pretty special for us to win,” Jim grinned, after returning flanked by the rest of their competitors in a moving guard of honour following the 470 Africa Championships, a tribute to this remarkable team and their status in the sport.
Jim added that, “for our other teams that we train with almost every day to come second, third and fourth means a lot to us. They are some of the many people supporting us. It shows how much training we do as a team. It makes us feel proud. It shows a lot of progress in terms of what we’re doing, and trying to do, here in Cape Town.”
Hudson agrees, adding that “They follow us in the coaching boat when we go out. They’re always out on the water with us. We’ve got loads of friends and guys working super hard for the cause… Our team really brings all aspects of South Africa into one boat. Sailing is the kind of sport where you need someone to show you the way, to help you with your ambitions, to offer support.”
Having discovered sailing during a short trip to visit his mother in Cape Town, Jim’s love for the sport and natural ability were soon evident.
Coming from the rural Eastern Cape, having struggled at school and eventually dropping out, Jim was no stranger to adversity. One day, out on the water, Hudson asked Jim what his dream was.
His answer? “To be an Olympic sailor”, and they have been making that happen ever since.
From being ranked 213th globally, in just a year and a half they managed to qualify for and compete in the London 2012 games.
They, rightly so, describe it as “a real David and Goliath story”.
Jim went from an informal settlement in South Africa to Olympic life in London with barely two years of experience at the helm, at the tender age of 20. And soon they’re off to Rio to do it all over again. “It’s the most incredible story”, says Southern Charter CEO Mark Thompson.
“We were already sponsoring regattas at the time and Roger Hudson came to me with Asenathi Jim’s story, which really is incredible”.
Thompson saw sponsoring South Africa’s first mixed race sailing team as invaluable not just for them, but the future of South Africa and sailing generally. He wanted to sponsor Jim particularly because it was a story that he could kind of relate to, “coming from nothing”.
“He’s got this energy, the time that he spends, his motivation… that’s something that you want to instil in everybody: if you put the hours in and you work hard, you get rewarded”, Thompson says.
They’ll be joined at the Olympics by fellow Capetonian and RaceAhead team mate, Brevan Thompson, one of the sailors who performed so well at the 470 African Championships.
Thompson has been training with the RaceAhead 470 squad for the last four years and is an accomplished sailor in his own right having represented South Africa at the Optimist Worlds and twice at the ISAF Youth Worlds.
Formerly coached and managed by Roger Hudson, the student has become mentor this year in the lead up to the Olympics. Asenathi and Roger couldn’t have made a better choice.
“When it’s all going well and you’re winning it feels a bit like [TV sitcom] Entourage”, Hudson says with a laugh.
The 470-Class is one of the most difficult and hotly contested classes in Olympic sailing. The two-person, 4.7 metre dinghy event was designed by Frenchman Andre Cornu in only 1963, first appearing in the Olympics as a mixed gender event in 1976.
The category, renowned for its highly competitive racing, is known as the most technical class in the Games. It is also one of the most gruelling sports overall; competitors have to race for five consecutive days in this physically and mentally taxing sport.
Their regatta will begin on the 9th of August finishing on the 14th at the Marina da Gloria in Guanabara Bay, Rio. Check out Supersport’s schedules to ensure that you don’t miss out. Let’s send our boys all of the support we can from back home.
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