KEY POINTS:
In our continuing series on Olympic experiences, we talk to Ralph Roberts who competed in the sailing at the 1960, 1964 and 1968 Games, was sailing manager in 1984, and chef de mission in 1992.
Turning up for my first Olympics ... I was excited and wide-eyed. I had listened to the likes of Peter Mander tell me about what Melbourne was like so I had an idea of what to expect but I hadn't appreciated the step-up from world championships to Olympics. I vividly remember going up to Rome for the opening ceremony, walking through the tunnel at the back of the New Zealand team (that's where they put us yachties in those days) and being deafened by the cacophony of noise. I had never experienced anything like it before.
Friendships . . are the Olympics. On the water, you are racing for your country and there are no friends. But once the regattas were finished I met many sailors who are still great friends of mine today nearly 50 years later. In 1960 Prince Constantine sailed for Greece winning gold and in 1964 Prince Harald sailed for Norway. During the 1964 opening ceremony, Harald was holding the flag for Norway and in the marshalling area they were right behind our New Zealand team. I was pretty popular with the girls in our team because they wanted to meet a real live prince. They were both very nice people, very quiet. In the early 1960s, I started racing against a young Belgian called Jacques Rogge. Of course, he's now the IOC president and he came out to New Zealand to lay the foundation stone for the Takapuna Boating Club in 2002.
I started dreaming about the Olympics ... in 1954 when I heard about the coming 1956 Olympics. I remember thinking I'd have to get fit enough and mentally prepared enough and make sure my sailing tactics were up to scratch. The Olympics are for everyone. It doesn't matter where you sit in the socio-economic scale, if you have the desire and the skills you can put your mind and body to it and you can make it.
Being appointed chef de mission ... was to me one of my life's greatest honours, a chance for me to bring all my experience and things that I had learned together. I had competed at three Games, went to Los Angeles as yachting manager and to Seoul on the international Olympic jury. When I was invited to be chef, I thought, "I know how it works for yachties but what about for other athletes?" I got together all the achievers of past Olympics and went through all their pitfalls and bugbears and came up with some cornerstones of how the team should be managed. Those cornerstones are still in place today. When you have happiness in a team, you find out grinners are winners and everyone sparks off each other and encourages each other to achieve.
My worst Olympic moment was ... in the third race of the Olympic regatta in 1960. I was involved in an incident at a mark and was disqualified. On my way back to the hotel that night I went past the royal palace where the results were posted and saw: "Finn Class, New Zealand, disqualified". It dawned on me that it wasn't me who was disqualified, it was New Zealand. I lay in my room feeling I'd let the country down. It was my worst moment but it was also a great learning moment. I realised I was really there representing my country and now I had to have the resolve to get on top of my sailing for the last four races if I wanted to be on the podium - and that's what the Olympics are about.
