Yacht Broker
Freelance

Anthony S

00:00:02 Hi, my name is Anthony S. I’m a yacht broker in Bristol. My job entails listing people’s boats for sale and helping people who want to buy a boat find the right boat. At the moment I’m a skeleton athlete as well. I’ve got a world ranking of number six and I’m really trying to make it to the 2010 Winter Olympics. Skeleton is on a bob sleigh track but I go on my own, head first.

00:00:29 Surprising enough I was quite into my sport at school and the academics were kind of just a bit of an enbuggerance that I had to endure, it seems. It was very like a social school and I had a lot of friends there and had a good time. It was a pretty laid back place. The things I initially didn’t enjoy, cross country, actually proved to be the most useful thing that I ever got out of school when I left. My fitness was kind of vital to the path I’d taken. At 16 I decided that I didn’t really want to take the usual path of university, desk job. However, I did stick around for my A Levels and that was mainly a kind of social decision to sort of stay with my mates and keep doing what they were doing.

00:01:09 Whilst they went to university when we hit 18 I really tried to pursue my sporting, you know, goals. I knew I needed a sort of second career and I spent a year with the Royal Marines Reserve which got my foot in the door should my sport go wrong or not achieve what I hoped to. Two years consequently to that I managed to get to the Commonwealth Games which was my big achievement in decathlon in my athletic career. Making it there made it feel all worthwhile.

00:01:37 At that point I thought, ‘can I get a little bit more?’ and could I actually make it to the Olympics. And I knew that it meant almost kind of putting your life on hold while everyone else is getting on with girlfriends and lives and jobs, I was kind of restricted to, I actually lived in a motor home for a year of that time, to really try and train with the right people, the right coaches and athletes and make it work and it was lonely for…you know, it really was.

00:02:14 And it didn’t work out this time, I didn’t make it to the Olympics but the Olympic bug had bitten and I was thinking, “How can I get there?” I chose another sport, skeleton, which just looked like fun. So, I‘ve been trying to make it in skeleton now to the Winter Olympics. I’ve done that for the last six years, I’ve got a world ranking of number six at the moment and I’m on the British Men’s team which is number one in the world as well. So, we’re doing rather well and I’m hopeful of making it to Vancouver Olympics in 2010.

00:02:47 It’s something that I see some real possibilities to go to the Olympics in that sport in the next year and a half. But again, I feel like I need to have a backup plan because it can go wrong quite quickly. I’ve through skeleton got a sponsorship deal which is a yacht brokerage, selling people’s boats for them and that’s what I’m doing here in Bristol at the moment.

00:03:13 For me the secret is to know where you want to go, to have goals and to be able to work your way back on how to achieve those. I’d say for myself I’ve got a reasonable work life balance. What seems idyllic travelling around the world doing sport and, you know, selling boats is great and there’s no other way I’d like to live. But your life goes on hold a lot in terms of I’m still living with my girlfriend’s parents, for example, at 28 years old and things like that that possibly sport has stopped but hopefully taught me a lot so that when actually I, post sport I think I’ll be able to achieve a lot more. ENDS