Olympic champion sails on and on
Rex Sellers feels a bit like a taxi driver about to hang up the keys, but it wouldn’t really be a surprise if he jumped back in the cab. Sellers has been sailing this week with his son, Brett, at the Tornado world championships which ended at Takapuna yesterday.
At 68, the two-time Olympic medallist thought before yesterday’s racing it might be his last major regatta but the pair went into the world championships having claimed the national title against the same competition a few days earlier and then finished fourth in a fleet of 23 boats.
Only boat damage, when an ‘‘unbreakable’’ part came away and meant they failed to finish two races, prevented them from collecting silver behind Australians Brett Burvill and Max Puttman.
They otherwise finished in the top three in six of the 10 races, including two race wins, to end up one point off a bronze medal.
‘‘Third is better than fourth but fourth is better than fifth,’’ Sellers said. ‘‘[The breakage] really put us on the back foot and we would have been second but, hey, that’s yacht racing.
‘‘You’re only as good as your last race and we are thrilled to have won that one. It’s been great to sail with Brett. That’s better
than any win. He’s as good as any crew I have had, probably better. I just do what he tells me, so the roles are reversed from when he was young.
‘‘I always say that [this will be the last major regatta]. It’s a bit like a taxi driver going around the block; doing 100,000km and saying that’s the end. We’ll see.’’
It would bring to a close a remarkable career, highlighted by Olympic gold (1984) and silver (1988) with Chris Timms in the Tornado class. Sellers went to four Olympics and might have won a third medal if it hadn’t been for New Zealand’s boycott of the 1980 Moscow Games.
These days he spends time babysitting his grandchildren, with his daughter Justina Kitchen hoping to compete at the 2024 Olympics in kiteboarding – the sport was recently included on the programme for Paris.
‘‘I just do what he tells me.’’
Rex Sellers on sailing with his son