Scholar Molly Sacker is a training partner for the Paris 2024 Olympics and studying a master’s degree!
Below is an article from Molly on her training, studies and what she has coming up!
“2024 is Olympic year and that has a significant influence on the calendar of all elite athletes, sailors included. For me, that meant an amazing opportunity to be involved as a training partner after our trials ended earlier in the year. I sail the ILCA 6, the women’s singlehanded Olympic boat which has the largest field of participants in the sailing discipline and as such, the level of competition is really high. We have a rigorous programme both on and off the water and usually involves a considerable amount of travel. With the Olympics being in Paris, sailing will be held at the co-host venue of Marseille, a city on the south coast.
I love Marseille, the beating sun, beautiful coastline and bustling hub of a city slightly indifferent to what’s
evolving around it, and it’s become a perfect training and racing venue. As a training partner, and not a qualified athlete for the games, the environment is a little different to how training would normally operate. The priorities shift to helping build a set up that most benefits the selected athlete and challenging them to get the most out of training. For me, this has been ideal in terms of establishing a focus for the summer. The start of my year was pretty rocky with a bad regatta and then a sudden illness/ injury which effectively put my year on hold until April, so spending the time now to work intensively in a high-performance environment is really helping me to learn as much as possible and observe a lot about the Olympic environment.
With the build-up to the games, much of my time recently has been spent in Marseille and so I’ve become somewhat neglectful of a consistent university course but being on the final few months of my masters in Conflict, Security and Development I’ve been able to carve out the time on rest days and evening to keep slowly chugging through the finishing assignments. It’s not always been the most fun thing to do after a big day of training or racing but I’m not slacking now! Maintaining a balance, with help from the university, has enabled me to acheve everything I’ve wanted to at university but, absolutely after this summer I’m finished with uni.
In the coming months, I’ve got a few more camps in Marseille to really finish strong with the team up to the Olympic Games, and a big regatta in Kiel, Germany in June to end out the 2024 racing season and then a few weeks off before I put my head down in September and the 2028 Olympics becomes the aim!”
Written by: Molly Sacker
Posted by: Performance Sport at the University of Exeter