First test for Olympic venue

Skandia Sail For Gold regatta has begun in Weymouth

Over 300 top international sailors, including some of Britain’s Olympic medal heroes today, Tuesday, started the week long event, Skandia Sail for Gold regatta at the 2012 Olympic sailing venue, the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy.

Skandia Sail for Gold is the first Olympic classes’ regatta competition since the 2008 Beijing Games. Weymouth based sailors are competing on their home turf including: Laser gold medallist Paul Goodison and the women’s windsurfing bronze medallist Bryony Shaw. The first day of racing has seen some of the Skandia Team GBR performance squad, those young sailors seen as 2012 hopefuls, excel in the shifty, light conditions.

The event is also a chance for many of the top foreign sailors to gain experience and knowledge of the next Olympic sailing venue.  This has seen entrants from Bulgaria, Brazil, China, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. This is the third year of the Skandia Sail for Gold Regatta and the event has already established itself as a firm fixture on the Olympic Classes circuit and has exciting plans to continue its development and expansion over the next few years.

Weymouth is home to Britain’s Olympic bronze windsurfing medallist Bryony Shaw who was pleased to be racing on home waters “It’s nice to be racing in British waters with lots of people you know and at such a good high standard because it means you are constantly challenged, even if it is a little colder. It’s good because it gets you back into racing and it keeps you sharp and often when you’re more relaxed you actually race better. After the Olympics it can be quite easy to sit back so this event gets you going again for the next four years.”

In the Finn Class, an absent Ben Ainslie meant current Finn Junior World Champion and 2012 hopeful Giles Scott, from Huntington in Cambridgeshire, had a chance to shine and finished first overall in the class.

In the women’s 470, the 2012 contenders Hannah Mills and Katrina Hughes who train out of Weymouth, are currently winning their class. The men’s 470 World and European Champions Asher and Willis are in second place behind French rivals Andrew and Nun.

The Laser is the largest fleet competing at the regatta, with a total of 57 boats.  Paul Goodison’s Beijing training partner, Nick Thompson is currently leading the Laser class with Mark Powell a close second.

The Chinese bronze medallist Lijia Xu is currently winning the Laser Radial class and Skandia Team GBR performance squad sailor Charlotte Dobson is the first British sailor and is currently fourth.

With the development of the Weymouth as the state of the art Olympic 2012 venue many of the sailors are excited about what the future will bring. “It’s incredible to see the work they’ve done on the venue just in the time that we’ve been away and it’s quite exciting to think what it will be like in four years time. It’s great to be racing against some of the Brits and people like Izzy Hamilton who is only 16 years, and she is naturally really quick. It is people like that keep you on your toes,” said Bryony Shaw.

Unable to compete due to an injury, Beijing silver medallist Joe Glanfield is working with some of the younger GBR squad members to assist with their development.

“I’ve done lots of work with the Olympic transition squads in the past and because I’m missing this event I decided to come along and see if I could help a hand.  It’s great to watch them out there and I’m sure it’s great for them because they are sailing at the site of the next Olympics against some really tough competition.  The site is going to be fantastic and it changes every time I’m here.  I now know what it means to have the Olympics here, it is going to be so special and lots of youngsters have been given a little taste of that today.”  Joe Glanfield, Double Olympic silver medallist.



All the Olympic Classes are sailing except the Yngling, the Tornado and the Star, with question marks surrounding the Olympic status for the Yngling and Tornado class for 2012.  Next year the Skandia Sail for Gold regatta will become part of the ISAF World Cup series, and is expecting in excess of 600 entrants from around the World.