John Bertrand (Australian sailor)
| Medal record | ||
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| Sailing | ||
Representing  Australia
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| Olympic Games | ||
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1976 Montreal | Finn Class |
John Edwin Bertrand AO (born 20 December 1946) is a yachtsman from Australia, who skippered Australia II to victory in the 1983 America's Cup, ending 132 years of American supremacy. Bertrand won the bronze medal in the Finn competition at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal. In 2010 and 2016, he won the world Etchell class sailing championships. He is a life member of both the Royal Brighton Yacht Club in Melbourne, and the Sorrento Sailing Couta Boat Club.
John Bertrand was born in Melbourne, Victoria.
He wrote Born to Win,The Power of a Vision, about the 1983 America's Cup victory, including insightful observations on the strategy for an unfavoured team against very long odds. During the 1983 competition, Bertrand and his crew deliberately employed their own psychological strategy ahead of the America's Cup breakthrough in refusing to refer to the all-conquering American team by their names and instead calling their opposition simply "the red boat" in order to mislead the rival. In 2016 Rio Olympic, Horton, an Australian freestyle swimmer champion, admitted the criticism towards another swimmer Sun Yang was a deliberate strategy to try and gain a mental edge on his rival, borrowing from the tactics employed by Bertrand in the lead-up to Australia II's famous triumph in 1983.
Bertrand is the chairman of the Sport Australia Hall of Fame (2005+) and The Alannah and Madeline Foundation (2001+).
He is also the President of Swimming Australia (Oct 2013+).
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