Mike Milner debuts as Sail Canada High Performance Director

May 10, 2018

The director and the athletes:
Sarah Douglas, Radial; Brenda Bowskill, Radial; Tom Ramshaw, Finn, Mike Milner, Sail Canada HPD and Walker Moffat. Ontario Sailing team, 29er and Nacra 15

Credit John Morris; 

Last Friday, Sail Canada officially introduced Michael Milner as Sail Canada’s new High Performance director at a press conference held at the Royal Canadian Yacht Club City Club in Toronto.

Mike grew up sailing at the Bronte Harbour Yacht Club, where he fell in love with the sport. From that point forward, he decided to expand his skills and started working for the Ontario Sailing Center Coach while also competing as a National Team Member in the Finn Class with International success.

As a coach Mike started his career at the Ontario Sailing Association and ever since then has worked with up and coming athletes and potential Olympic medalists – providing his leadership, mentorship and knowledge to the athletes. Mike spent 19 years (from 1996-2015) as the Sailing Director for the Royal Canadian Yacht Club where he started the RCYC High Performance Program.

The key deliverables for Sail Canada will be a sustainable, collaborative and performance measurement-based approach in all it does as it addresses the development of the team moving forward while identifying and assisting in the development of athletes and increasing participation at all levels of the sport.

Todd Irving Sail Canada President commented on the Milner appointment as follows; “This announcement marks a milestone in a two-year High Performance program transformation. We are confident that Mike has the right skills to execute our High Performance Plan: A new national system of athlete measurement and evaluation together with Regional NextGen Hubs to ensure that we have sustainable athlete development for international success. Please lend your support to help us move forward with these exciting changes.”

Don Adams CEO of Sail Canada, added “we are excited to have Mike join our team as we continue to build the High Performance system in Canada working with our many stakeholders of clubs, provinces, athletes and volunteers. We look forward to working collaboratively on our High Performance objectives.”

At the event, Mike made it clear that a major goal is for Canada to win an Olympic Gold medal; there have been many medalists, but none at the top of the podium.