Volvo

It has been a hectic few months for me and Sarah as we start our campaign for the Games in 2012.

Because I didn’t get the result I wanted in Beijing, I took sometime to really think about the way forward in terms of my sailing and I am really excited about starting this new partnership with Sarah. The last Olympics were an excellent learning experience for me and I want to use all that I learned about myself as a person and a sailor for the next Olympics in Weymouth.

In January Sarah came to the Olympic class event in Miami at the last minute to see what 470 sailing was all about and how we got on as a team.  We finished thirteenth but it was a successful in terms of making the decision to start a campaign together.  After Miami, we decided against the usual Palma training camp in favour of toughing it out in freezing Weymouth!

Sarah is obviously hugely experienced and being a double gold medallist I'm learning a lot from her, and I have a lot of competitive experience in the 470 to bring to the partnership. Being a new team the next few months will be a mix of training with a few events, it is all about setting a real solid background for the Olympic campaign. We have to make sure we have the right building blocks in place to lay the foundations for what we hope will be a successful Olympics in 2012.

We have a bit of a mountain to climb with being a brand new team, as well as Sarah being new to the 470. So we are taking it a step at a time, we are not going to get ahead of ourselves and rush things, just go about it sensibly and take it from there. We are certainly prepared for all the hard work that lies ahead of us and really trying to make it work as a team. We're aiming to compete at the next Skandia Sail for Gold regatta being held in Weymouth in August, it will give us some great practice time on what will be the Olympic courses in 2012.

Last year’s Sail for Gold was the sort of first taste of a big event down in Weymouth and it was a great event. All our neighbours and local school kids came down and it was a really good atmosphere and hopefully it’ll be better in 2012 and we can deliver on the medals front and get everyone excited about British sailing.

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