We’re so excited to be joining Team Volvo!
It’s funny because for the past few years me and Stu have been training partners to these guys who have all been driving Volvos around and have Volvo on their sails and we feel it is a pretty elite group to get into. So when we got an asked if we would like to join Team Volvo we just looked at each other and there was no hesitation.
When you are coming up through the ranks you drive these old bangers and vans around and spend half your life in garages getting your transport fixed. But knowing that we now have a car for us, that is perfect for what we need to help in our campaign in the build up to the Games, means we can spend just a little bit more time and energy on trying to win that gold medal, which is ultimately what all this is about.
Since we were named as part of TeamGB for London 2012, we have definitely had one of the more different months of our lives! We were the only two athletes from any sport to be selected on that day and our selection also tied in with the 200 days to go countdown.
The day we were selected and the day after were more mental than I have ever known! I can’t tell you how many camera flashes, TV cameras and microphones we had pointed at us. But it was really, really good fun and was actually very significant for us because it was like ‘This is it now, this is where it all really starts’.
It drew a line under the trials period of our lives and began a new chapter where the only focus, every single minute of every day between now and the Games, is in giving ourselves the best chance of winning gold.
We went to the Worlds [ the ISAF Sailing World Championships] with a job to do, to win gold and give the selectors no excuse not to select us. In that respect it was like no Worlds I have ever prepared for or been to before. But we didn’t win gold, we won silver and that ate at me over Christmas and New Year. I was completely and utterly unconfident about being selected. I was quietly hopefully and I felt like we deserved it but I wasn’t confident. We spend our lives trying to control the controllables, but this was something that was completely out of our control and although I was happy to get another Worlds silver, it wasn’t gold and we don’t do this to come second.
Now everything is about onwards and forwards. We are not going to be doing anything dramatically differently to what we’ve been doing for the past two years because what we’ve been doing has resulted in 10 medals for us. But it is fair to say there is a new sense of drive and enthusiasm behind everything we are doing. We are being dead strict in our goal setting and what we want to get out of every single day.
The Skandia Team GBR support staff have always been amazing, but since being selected we know there is absolutely no wrong time or place to ask them anything and they are doing everything they can to help us win. We’re really looking forward to being part of that close-knit team for the Games. We missed out for the Test Event last year as we weren’t selected but me and Stu are pretty happy go lucky guys and we get on great with all the team.
It also feels amazing to know I have the support of my home nation behind me.
I was the first Scot to be selected for TeamGB for London 2012, which is the coolest thing, but I didn’t even know until a reporter mentioned it halfway through an interview! That is a serious privilege and although I obviously won’t be flying the Scottish flag at the Games, RYA Scotland, the Scottish Institute of Sport and everyone back at my home club, the Royal Northern and Clyde YC, know what they have done to help me get to this point. You can take the boy out of Scotland but you can’t take Scotland out of the boy!
Luke
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