Yachting: Davis quits as Olympic director

Rod Davis

Olympic and America's Cup sailor Rod Davis is quitting as Yachting New Zealand's (YNZ) Olympic director after just six months in the job.

YNZ today cited Davis' commitments with cup challenger Team New Zealand as the key reason.

But Davis, who is Team NZ's afterguard coach, said the split was caused by differences in philosophy over the way ahead to the 2008 Beijing Games.

"It's not to do with my commitments with Team NZ because my commitments with Team NZ have not changed since I took the job," he said.

"We had a few philosophical differences about how the Olympic programme should proceed and we have been unable to resolve those differences."

Davis wasn't prepared to elaborate, saying it wasn't in the best interests of the sailors he had worked with, and whom he would continue to be available to work with on an individual basis.

"There's more to the story," he said.

"But I don't know that airing the differences is going to help the sailors at this point as far as winning medals is concerned."

Davis won an Olympic gold for the United States and an Olympic silver for New Zealand in keelboat classes. He also sailed for New Zealand in the America's Cup.

He said he had had "a brilliant six months" in setting up the programme for the Olympic sailing squad.

He was sad to leave "because we've got some great sailors and we could do some really good stuff".

YNZ said Davis had done "outstanding" work over the past six months and had established an "uncompromising focus" on lifting New Zealand's performance in Olympic sailing.

Chief executive Des Brennan was confident Davis' premature departure would not affect preparations for Beijing.

"The athletes' programmes are well in place for this year and we have time to regroup," he said.

"This is a rejig of our course. It's not an emergency. It's business as usual and we will make the transition."

Brennan said Davis was involved in two intense programmes -- at Team NZ and at YNZ -- which were both coming to a climax over the next couple of years.

He acknowledged that YNZ knew about Davis' role at Team NZ when it appointed him, describing him as having been the "candidate of choice".

"But you advance through a programme and you look at what's coming up down the track and say, okay how does that look in terms of our ability to deliver?

"You have to go into consultations and talk about that and then decide what is best."

Brennan said was Davis' replacement would be appointed as soon as possible.

- NZPA