Countdown to Rio 2016 continues with the first official Test Event this August
With just over two years to go until the Rio 2016 Games, the British Sailing Team today announced its selected team for the first Olympic Test Event to be held this summer on Guanabara Bay.
The event (2-9 August 2014) is the first official Test Event for any Olympic sport, and will see 30 British sailors across ten Olympic Classes joining their international rivals on the 2016 racecourses, as the preparation and focus towards the Rio Games steps up a gear.
The selected team comprises a mix of established Olympians and international medallists as well as new young talents, and was unveiled today on the final day of the Sail for Gold Regatta – the third leg of the EUROSAF Champion Sailing Cup series – staged at the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy.
Selections were based on results at a range of international regattas, with final decisions still to be made in the Laser Radial event.
Announcing the team on Friday (6 June), RYA Olympic Manager Stephen Park remarked that this summer’s event marks an important milestone in the team’s efforts towards Olympic success in two years’ time.
“The Rio Test Event for a lot of sailors and a lot of the teams, is really the first big marker in the journey to the Games. It’s the first real competition on those Olympic race areas that the sailors have to really get their teeth into the Olympic venue and start to feel what it’s going to be like in 2016,” Park explained.
“In terms of outcomes for us the most important thing for us is just about trying to learn from that experience, both in terms of the sailors learning about Rio and about Brazil, and about living and managing to perform in a new and strange environment with a slightly different culture,” Park continued.
“It’s about building that familiarity, but on the other side we’re keen to make sure that where there are opportunities for some of our sailors to log in some good results, then clearly we’re pretty keen to take them as well.
“Hopefully we’ll be able to come away with maybe three medals, but really more importantly than that, it is about everybody taking every opportunity that exists through our time in Rio to really learn through that process and come away with some lessons in place for events that will take place throughout 2015 into the 2015 Test Event, and of course into 2016 for the Games itself.”
“We’re under no illusions – it’s more competitive that it’s ever been, certainly at this stage two years out from the Games,” Park observed.
“There’s a lot of hard work still to go, and if our sailors want to win medals at those events they’re going to have to keep pushing, every single day.”
British Sailing Team selections for the 2014 Rio Olympic Test Event:
Finn
Giles Scott
Ed Wright
RS:X Men
Nick Dempsey
Tom Squires
RS:X Women
Bryony Shaw
Izzy Hamilton
470 Men
Luke Patience-Elliot Willis
Mike Wood-David Kohler
470 Women
Hannah Mills-Saskia Clark
Sophie Weguelin-Eilidh McIntyre
49er
Dylan Fletcher-Alain Sign
John Pink-Stuart Bithell
49erFX
Charlotte Dobson-Sophie Ainsworth
Frances Peters-Nicola Groves
Nacra 17
Ben Saxton-Hannah Diamond
Lucy Macgregor-Andrew Walsh
Laser
Nick Thompson
Elliot Hanson
[selected following the Laser Europeans in June]
Laser Radial
Two sailors will be selected immediately prior to the Test Event from:
Alison Young
Chloe Martin
Hannah Snellgrove