Stevie Morrison, gold medal winning coach
by Andi Robertson 28 Aug 21:30 NZST
Ellie Aldridge (GBR) wins Women's Kite gold at the Paris 2024 Olympics © World Sailing / Sander van der Borch
Double 49er Olympian and past world champion Stevie Morrison coached Ellie Aldridge to Britain's only sailing gold medal at Paris 2024.
The Exmouth ace knows all about disappointment at the Olympics having gone to Beijing 2008 and London 2012 among the standout medal favourites and coming up somewhat short - eighth in Qingdao and fifth in Weymouth. He has now carved out an enjoyable niche mixing top level coaching with his own pro sailing, complementing his favourite role as the inimitable, knowledgeable voice in the SailGP commentary box.
We caught up with Stevie as he returned to Exmouth...
So how does it feel to be a gold medal winning coach?
It is a bit surreal, I don't feel that much different to when I coached Charlotte and Sas for example, I don't feel like I did very much different. There is an element of pride that we made the right choices through the last year or 18 months that we have been working on this together. I feel like it also kind of vindicates that my outlook on sailing isn't wrong. Which, when you think 2008, Ben and I went as favourites and the outcome was a very good picture of us doing a nosedive, I'd be lying if I did not worry there has been worries about, let's say, my slightly jovial manner. I don't think there is anything unprofessional, but I just do like to have a smile on my face. It is nice to be vindicated and approach the race course with that mindset and come away with a gold medal.
What were some of the key decisions you made together which contributed most?
I think the key, key decisions were that we used the tracking a lot to say 'well look you have some really good modes Ellie, but the French are sailing fast and low, they are sending it harder. And so Ellie made some huge gains on that in the last four months. And also just developing that mindset that there is a lot in the details. I think she was used to going 'well this feel OK' or 'I am not sure if this feel right' and so I was 'Right, let's get it right, not just make up for the fact you are good at riding, naturally. Let us get the angle and set up of the mast right and the finish of the foil satisfactory so you are not compensating all the time. It is fitting you and you are not fitting it. And so, just a good mindset like that.
We had a pretty good look at the numbers. So, for example, when you start you have got to be in space and you have to be going fast. We have gone from hitting the start line at 11 or 12 knots to it now being unacceptable to be slower than 17 or 18 knots when the gun goes. She has made some pretty huge changes. But really not so many major things - that was something we spotted and then have made the most of it.
Also, like any sailing boat, all the kites are a little bit different, so we did not have the choice of all the kites we maybe would have liked. The budget of the American lady (Daniela Moroz) was pretty massive - so it terms of kit I think we selected well. We selected in January, what Ellie felt was the best and tuning runs backed that up, we sort of stuck with that all the way through. It was great to just pull them out the bag just before the Olympics and know we had the best. As ever, little details, always details...
Give us some more detail on the different modes?
In terms of modes I am from a sailing background so I am thinking mast bend and rake for example, when in fact what we did is shim the mast a little bit forward so that means you get the same pressure in the front foot - if you like - she has just got to go faster. The faster you go the more lift you get off the board and the more lift you get off the front foot. If you then angle the mast differently you give yourself more or less load at speed. We made it so that sailing around at 18 knots in what you call a higher slower groove, you have to go 20 to 21kts. It took me a while to get me head around it. But you are not really changing so much - it is mostly the mind set.
Then things are all happening two knots quicker too. Again, because Ellie is smaller, which is a big deal when you really want to be bigger, she rides very on the edge. A year or 18 months ago she crashed a lot. For the first two months it was me telling her 'you are not allowed to crash, you have to find the edge and ride the edge, if that is the edge for you don't try and go over it, it is called the edge because if you go over it you fall'.
I have done nothing which is rocket science, that is for sure. We have a squad of four in the UK, the GB Kite Girls: Maddy Anderson, Lily Young and Katie Dabson and we were able to do a lot of Finals racing. We did not reinvent the wheel with it, but you could see in these last races how accurate she is. If you don't get a lay line right - to miss a lay line is a disaster - or to not then set yourself up well for the next downwind or upwind leg, a tight lay line, say, makes massive differences. She just thrashed herself round a lot of courses.
The thing is we did not do much in the preparation that we did not do in the past. The difference was Ellie's ability to execute on the day. We always had quite clear things to work on, even when she won the first 'finals' race she had quite clear things to work on. I was saying 'good, but next race you have to be quicker at the start. And so we were always good at having things to work on to make us better. Our goal at the Olympics was to sail better on the last day than we did on the first. I believe she did that.
How did you come to work with Ellie in the first place and how much did you do together?
I did the Kite Worlds with the Bridges and Connor Bainbridge and I do a bit of kiting and Ellie is an ex FX sailor and she, I guess, knew I had done 49ers and that kind of thing. The fact that she was in primary school when I did that is a sad reality!
She gave me a call. We asked the RYA, they found a little bit of money for me to go to the Worlds in Sardinia with her and then we stayed in touch. Then, leading into the test event last year, I started in May then did a couple of weeks a month in May and June into the Test event, then we had a break until January this year. We did a lot of planning on the phone and so on, and I went to check kites here and there. Then from April we have been flat out, full on.
Did you always see a medal winning potential in Ellie?
To be frank, all four girls had so much potential, really. The key thing with Ellie is she is pretty bloody good under pressure, very composed. It is very easy to have a tangle where someone clips your kite and knocks your kite out of the sky, not necessarily anything hugely bad or out of order, but she is so composed.
At the test event last year, for example, and bear in mind that is her Olympic trials, she was 150 metres ahead in the first race on the first day and she hit a plastic bag, or a piece of seaweed doing 30 knots downwind - that is catastrophic - she went from comfortable first to 11th - she was a bit annoyed but she dealt with it. I would have been livid. I would have thrown the toys out the pram, but she just carried on. Probably at that point I though 'right, you have the right attitude and composure for this' and clearly already she had handling.
The challenge for her was if she willing to do the extra bits, all that it takes. She has put on a lot of extra weight - about 5 kilos - that was a big difference. And society-wise for women that is a big thing, having a body conscious image for women that is not easy. She did that and did all the work and accepted the changes, me saying 'let's make it work for you and not you work for it'. Little things like that are fundamental to your DNA, but often the little ones are those that people find hardest because they are not so tangible.
It was a very short, intense, hot and difficult event for the Kiters. In terms of your approach is there anything you did differently?
We had done a lot of the hard work before and we did a good job of staying in the moment. I was genuinely worried we might have only one day of racing, so we talked about starting with no discards, we have to be consistent early on and we have to battle from situations, that is something Ellie is always good at, she is always 'attack, attack, attack'.
In some situations you have to step back and try and overtake on the next round, so don't put yourself at too much risk. I think she did a great job at managing the risk and then keeping herself in the mix. Between us I think we did a good job at not getting too stressed about the fact we were not getting many races. It felt like one little mishap would have cost you.
The Finals day she was very composed. We knew it was on the crossover for her. We had done a lot of training where we had decided we wanted to be ahead at Mark 1 and then defend, rather than be behind at Mark 1 and try and overtake, so that was about kite choice. I could say 'you are in the crossover and have to trust yourself' and she did. I can take no credit for that.
And you seem to have a nice balance of work, now you are a gold medal winning coach who will surely be in big demand will you do more?
I enjoy the coaching. You have to fit correctly and get on well. We made a point of going to the opening ceremony together and things like that. I think in the right environment coaching is really fun. I enjoy the variety.
My favourite thing is the commentary. I love the commentary because it is the one thing that makes me feel like I am racing, when you say something stupid then everyone hears it and so there is always pressure to be on your game. And coaching there is a worse pressure because you are completely out of control.
At Olympic level there are no excuses. There are no compromises. You are either good enough or you are not, and I have been on the wrong side of that a few times. So from that point of view I probably have more empathy with the people who did not quite get there, like for Micky and John and Anna, they are absolute superstars but it did not quite work for them.