In his mid-twenties, David Hudson should have gone to the Olympics, but world politics got in the way. It took 20 years before the 46-year-old got his chance in Barcelona; it wasn’t quite what he expected.
It was a day he will never forget. July 25, 1991. The day sailor David Hudson heard that South Africa would be allowed back in the Olympics. At the time, he was on the Mediterranean Sea just off Barcelona, Spain, the very place where the next Olympics were to take place. He was there to watch the world’s best sailors compete, 12 months before the Olympics, to give them a taste of sailing in Mediterranean waters.
“It was something else. When our readmission looked likely, I intended coaching. My intention was to help as a volunteer,” he says.
“It was after Nelson Mandela was released. It was at this stage when the drafting of the Constitution was under way. There was an eminent persons group, three African heavyweights, they came out in April 1991 and did a trip around South Africa to see where things were. “
Hudson was jibing sails and skimming across the water with the best of them from the age of 20. If it wasn’t for apartheid he was a sure bet for the Olympics.
“My Olympic chance would have been 1971, when I competed in the World Championships in the pre-Olympic season. We were very strong then, but that was when I was in my twenties.”
The veteran Hudson, now 70-years-old, says it can take as long as seven years to build an Olympic team, South Africa had 17 weeks in 1991. Hudson, who was by now forging a career as an assistant general manager at Old Mutual, thought he was long past his sell-by date. How wrong he was.
In that December, Hudson got a phone call from David Kitchen, his Olympic sailing partner, who changed everything.
“I knew him, but not very well. He said he was stuck, his helmsman had dropped out, and he’d bought a secondhand boat for the trials. He wanted to sail with me. I said I am 45, I’m not interested,” says Hudson.
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