n When did Mara get the bug to compete? Mara hit her teenage years as main foredeck hand racing her family catamaran on the exciting Asian circuit. She loved the racing every day and social parties every night. She was having so much fun it was inevitable she would take this path for her life. n What is her training regime like leading into an event? Every day is a training day for Mara, everything is learning. One of Mara’s coaches once said, “Mara’s days off are as hard as her training days!” She works with her squad to organise more training camps than any of the other squads. She’ll be sail-training around 20 days a month, trying to target the conditions of the next regatta. On her days not sailing she’ll be biking, doing the hard yards in the gym and wing foiling. n When does this training start? It starts the day after the last regatta. Looking over what to improve on, what went right and what could be done better, booking her next accommodation, paying for regattas, organising training. It’s not so much work for Mara but simply the joy of learning more about her passion in life. n How much time does she dedicate to learning the courses? As a youngster Mara was always very involved in the GPS programming of the many complex regatta courses and now she prides herself on studying the Sailing Instructions and courses as soon as they come out, to be on top of things. In terms of learning the venue, they have been training at the Paris Olympic venue every summer since Tokyo to become familiar with the conditions. Having contested so many world-class events, knowing the course layout becomes second nature really. n Did she goal plan to get to the Paris Olympics – when did this start? In her primary school days of doing Little Athletics, Mara loved the Olympics and idolised these amazing athletes at the pinnacle of their sport. She liked the idea of competing but had no idea in what event! Probably a key time for her was seeing all the Rio Olympians returning to RQYS and feeling she could do that too. It was not until 2019, when she scored a world top-10, that she felt competing at the Olympics could become a reality. The Paris games just follow on from her success in Tokyo. Mara’s sailing progress is really more about following her passion than any goal-setting. n What were some drawbacks/hurdles/road bumps along the way? At the 2017 Nationals, Mara finished second in the final race and looked to have secured the Youth Worlds spot, only to discover she had been BFD’d in this race. After Mara’s impressive first series of regattas in Europe she had a rare poor showing at the 2018 Worlds in Arhuss and was dropped from the squad entirely. It was here that the RQYS stepped in and put Mara back on the road to Tokyo. In 2022 Mara was in blistering form and led all three abandoned races at the Palma World Cup. By now, the race committee was getting desperate to finish some races and let through two really bad ones in which Mara placed poorly; she fought back strongly but a double yellow flag cost her another poor result. She finished only 22nd and was again dropped from the Australian Sailing team after what had been a stellar year otherwise, winning Kiel Week and placing fourth in the Dutch World Cup. n How did she overcome these? Having a good strong network saved Mara from these hard situations which could easily have derailed her. The Squadron’s belief in Mara has been very special and highlights the valuable contribution the Harrison Fund makes. Mara is also aware of life’s twists and turns, thinking that, if it was easy, everyone would be going to the Olympics. “The dream doesn’t change just because it’s harder than you thought!” As we know Mara’s accomplishments, we thought readers may be interested to know some of the back-story behind her journey, so we put seven questions to one person guaranteed to know where in the world Mara might be at any given time, her proud dad (another prolific prizewinner — and sometimes it’s hard to tell if he’s collecting for himself or on behalf of a globetrotting Mara!), Squadron ILCA sailor Andew Stransky: Lower two images these pages by Beau Outteridge, Australian Sailing Team 53 Journey to success
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