“This word ‘dominate’ was thrown around a lot,” Australian sailor Matt Wearn says.
Coming off Olympic gold at Tokyo, expectations were high.
“Everyone was just like, well, ‘now it’s time to dominate,’” the 28-year-old says. “From a team perspective, but probably from myself in some sense as well.”
Wearn was chasing a first world championship crown at the 2022 event in Mexico. After finishing second at three previous world titles, the favourite – and one of the country’s most respected sailors – sought the only prize in the class that had so far eluded him.
But on that wobbly day off the Mexican coast, domination was the furthest thing from his mind.
“Day one of the regatta, I remember just … not being in a good place,” he says. “We went out in the water and it was becoming a safety issue. Not blacking out or anything, but I was so dizzy and foggy that I couldn’t really tell where I was or what I was doing.”
Until then, the two biggest challenges in Wearn’s career had been simple non-selection: missing the Australian squad in 2015, and narrowly missing out on Olympic selection in 2016 to eventual Rio gold medal winner Tom Burton. Wearn had bounced back quickly from both, using the setbacks as motivation.
But hard work could not save him this time. In fact, it was making the problem worse.
In the early months of 2022 Wearn suffered a bout of gastro, then caught a non-Covid virus travelling to Europe. Within two weeks of arriving he had contracted Covid, and before long was diagnosed with an inner-ear infection. On the water off Mexico, it was obvious his body wasn’t right.
Wearn “unfortunately had to withdraw at the last moment”, according to one report. “I’m really disappointed to miss out on racing here, but I will rest up and be back in fine form for the next regatta.”
In some ways the comment reflected the West Australian to a T: optimistic, understated. In truth, it drastically underplayed what was really going on.
Wearn has spent more than a decade representing Australia in the Ilca 7 class, since breaking into elite sailing as a teenager. The boats are better known under their previous moniker, Laser standard. These are one-person dinghies about the size of a small car, but resemble a sailboat a child might draw. They are among the cheapest and most accessible forms of sailing – and therefore one of the most competitive.
Burton, Wearn’s longtime squad mate, describes the class as the “toughest Olympic discipline in sailing”. Manoeuvring Ilca 7s at the elite level requires strength and stamina. Boats might be on the water for most of the day across multiple races and multiple days.
But the Ilca 7 also rewards strategy. In fleets of dozens of boats, each solo sailor must make hundreds of decisions over a single race: how best to tackle the course, where the prevailing winds are, who has right of way, where the clean air is, how to use body weight to tack sharply and maximise speed, and how to counter opponents’ strategy. Australia has a strong tradition in the class, having won the previous three Olympic golds.
Wearn – who won the last one himself, in Tokyo – is in the middle of preparation for Paris. He is one part sailor and one part elite athlete: bronzed skin, sandy hair, complimentary crows feet and a grin that has seen a thousand storms. At the same time, tall with a muscular build, an even temperament and obvious confidence.
At Royal Brighton Yacht Club in early December, having just taken out the Sail Melbourne regatta and preparing for January’s world championships in Adelaide, he is affable, comfortable and open. But from time to time he offers a glimpse inside his difficulties of the past year.
“As an athlete, if you had an injury or something, you’re given a timeframe of how long things might take to progress and get back out training,” Wearn says. “Whereas this was just … no one could give me any answers. So I was starting to doubt whether I’d ever get back to where I was before.
“You read all this stuff, and you see all this stuff about people with long Covid, sort of never being the same. And I guess I just started to wonder whether that was a possibility for me as well.”
In early 2022 he had pushed through his Covid infection and other ailments and tried to ramp up again for Mexico in May, but his body wouldn’t let him. After his withdrawal from the year’s most prestigious meet – won by French veteran Jean-Baptiste Bernaz – the following months brought him no respite.
“I was just stuck in bed,” Wearn says. “Really, the only thing I could do was lie down.”
Michael Blackburn, Wearn’s longtime coach and now the technical director of the entire Australian sailing team, says Wearn’s ability to identify what’s required physically, and then deliver it, is his “hallmark”.
“His consistency is remarkable,” Blackburn says. “When we would put him through a 10-minute bike test, or give him a set of numbers to try and hit, he’ll go straight there and hit it, and be in a world of pain by the end of it, but he would have been loyal to those numbers throughout, and achieved the goal.”
But after his shock withdrawal from the world championships, his hallmark was of little help.
“I’d have a week off and start to feel good and start training again,” Wearn says. “And every time it would just come back worse and worse and worse.”
Wearn was diagnosed with long Covid. A consultation with a physiologist helped him realise his recovery was not going to be like mending a muscle strain or healing a bone. It would need wholesale change, a shift in outlook.
“[The physiologist] said, ‘hey, look, you’ve cooked yourself, you need to stop,’” he says. “I was like, ‘crap, this lady’s only just come in and seen me for an hour consult over Zoom and she’s hit the nail on the head.’”
He had been training and competing more or less non-stop since making his world championship debut in 2011. But now, a new phase in Wearn’s life began.
“A big part of it was the mental side of things as well,” he says. “[The physiologist] just said, ‘you need to de-stress.’ Obviously, stress in any form takes a toll, whether it’s physical or mental or whatever. So she said just do whatever you need to do to chill out. Just be a human basically.”
It took some effort to change his ways, and sailing took a back seat. He was sleeping more than he was awake. He meditated. He helped plan his wedding. He tried to eat, despite a loss of appetite. At all times, Wearn was measuring his sleep and heart rate to ensure he was not extending himself. And slowly, he began to recover.
“Once Europe started to cool off a bit, the health came back to a level that we were confident that I could fly home without catching anything.”
And then, he began trying to become a sailor again. Firstly, just 10 minutes spinning his legs on a bike. Eventually, back on the water. But never pushing himself near physical stress. It was more than six months until he returned to his regular training regimen.
The program worked. From those dark days in Europe, Wearn recovered in time to win the test event for the Paris Olympics in July, and then remarkably – a year after his dramatic withdrawal – that elusive world championship in the Netherlands a month later. In December he was named the Australian Institute of Sport male athlete of 2023.
Wearn says good fortune, as much as training or talent, has enabled his recovery: “I am really lucky, and I understand that a lot of people haven’t been so lucky.”
But there are still echoes from his struggles.
“The anxiety has definitely stuck around, almost sort of PTSD kind of situation at times, where symptoms would pop up that would be quite anxiety-inducing,” he says. “And having to go through that process again and understanding whether the symptoms that I’m feeling, is that due to anxiety or is that anxiety that’s brought it on? There’s this massive snowball effect at times.”
Wearn now keeps an even closer watch on his diet and training load.
“Every day, every week that goes by I’m learning more and more about myself in that situation, and then what helps me as well.”
The results suggest he is, as some may have ordained, dominating the class. But to Wearn, the results are no longer everything.
“2022 slipped away from me,” he says. “There’s been a perception change. At the end of the day, this is for fun, this is to enjoy the sport, get out there and get back doing what I love doing and realising why I did it as a kid as well. That freedom of being out in the elements, and enjoying that.”
