Evie Haseldine

Evie Haseldine was just a wide-eyed youngster the day Olympic sailor Olivia Price turned up at Drummoyne Sailing Club in Sydney to show the juniors her 2012 London Games silver medal. It ignited an Olympic dream in young Evie.

Almost a decade later, Evie and Olivia have teamed up to make that dream come true at the Paris Olympics.
Sailing together in the 2023 World Championships in The Netherlands in August, the pair won a bronze medal and secured Australia a quota spot in the 49erFX class in Paris. It was Australia’s best result in the 49erFX class.

Evie, 21, has known Olivia all her life because their fathers sailed together on 16ft skiffs. “I started sailing at age seven in a Sabot at Drummoyne Sailing Club,” Evie said. “My Dad loves sailing, so he shared the passion with me.”

In 2018, aged just 14, Evie competed at the Youth Olympics in Buenos Aires and later in the year finished second in the under-16 category at the World Championships, placing 16th overall in world rankings.

The following year she was second in the female division of the 2019 Australian Youth Nationals, crewing in the 29er class. By 2020, Evie was selected as one of four Australian women under 21 to compete in the SailGP Inspire program.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Evie realised she needed a mentor to help her realise her dream of competing at an Olympics and Olivia – 11 years her senior – was the obvious candidate.

“I always knew that I wanted to go to the Olympic Games, but during Covid my Dad said to me, ‘If you're serious about this you should ask Olivia’,” Evie recalled. “So, I approached Olivia and asked her to be my mentor, saying: ‘I want to go to the Olympic Games – and I want to win.’

“Olivia was retired at this point, and she said, ‘Well, I'll have to see you sailing’, so we got on the boat, and I think we knew what we had was very rare in terms of being able to communicate the way we did.

“Two days later I got a call from Olivia asking, ‘Do you want to go to the Olympic Games, and do you want to get a medal?’”

Both sailors realised during that one session that there was something special about their combination and by the time they had pulled their craft out of the water their Paris campaign was under way.

Their intuitive relationship – and a strong adherence to a code they call ‘The System’ – are key to the incredible understanding the pair have forged since teaming up in early 2022.

“The thing that we have in sailing is that there's so many variables, you know, the wind, your boat, the set-up,” Evie said. “We really need to try and control the controllables because there's too many variables to try and control. And so, the first thing to be able to achieve that communication [that’s required] is to be talking to each other on a logical level.

"The training session must be used very effectively and efficiently. And that communication came through a structure Olivia developed at the 2012 London Games that her coach and her team of three called The System.’

“Basically, The System is you know yourself, the boat and your partner and making everything operate. And so, when we're on the water and something happens – or we start talking to each other in an emotional way – we say ‘RECALIBRATE’ to one another. Recalibrate ...

“That’s to say, ‘All right, that's enough’ and [figure out] the next thing that's going to happen in the environment because everything that happens within the environment decides all our other actions and our process loops. And once we establish that system with one another we stay dedicated to that system ... that's when we're working at a high efficiency.”

As well as hours on the water, Evie has spent plenty of time on dry land working on all the other factors that will ensure the pair are at their best in Paris.

“That communication doesn't just happen out on the water,” she said. “There's a lot of hours I spend with the [sport] psychologists, and there's a lot of time that I spend talking to Olivia as a mentor and all different people I've reached out to.

“I'm in such a fantastic position and have such a unique opportunity to be at an Olympic Games possibly two years after stepping on the boat. I don't want to let this go to waste.”

Off the water, Evie is studying for a bachelor of media and communications at Sydney University and is a member of the NSW Institute of Sport Athlete Advisory Group.