Annie, Kate and I are currently enjouing our final day at home today before heading down to Weymouth tonight ready for the final preparations before the Pre Olympic Test Event starting next week.
Before each Olympic Games a Test Event is held at the venue one year in advance to ensure that all the facilities, equipment, logistics and technologies are in place and up to scratch. It not only gives the organisers, media and local suppliers a chance for a “dry run”, but is also an excellent opportunity for the competitors to sail in conditions as close a practicable to what it will be like at Games next year.
Twelve countries have been invited to compete at the Test Event, as determined by the current world rankings. We’re excited to be representing Great Britain, along with teams from Australia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden and USA.
Match Race Girls credit Lloyd images
It’s an important and exciting time in our campaign at the moment. In a few days time there will be just one year before the start day of the 2012 London Olympics and the Test Event will be the closest we’ll get to replicating the event next year. Like we’ll have next year, there will only be 12 teams at the test event, one per qualifying nation so the format will be very different for the event with one complete round robin then quarters, semis and finals. There will be plenty of time to get all the racing in so just doing three races per day and having lay days will be aspects of the event to get used to in preparation for next year where we would start on day 1 of the Games and finish on the final day!
The Match Race Girls training in Palma Credit Lloyd images
Our training has been going really well recently. We all know there are still huge areas where we can improve as a team both on our strengths and weaknesses but that is a very exciting part of the process and after the next couple of weeks we’ll assess that very thoroughly before looking ahead to the next phase of racing and training in the Autumn.
We’re aiming for a medal when we start racing next Tuesday which certainly won’t be easy as there is going to be some great competition but we’re looking forward to the challenge!
Lucy
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