Annie Lush Blog - Excitement building ahead of Sunday start
Written by Annie Lush | 27 July 2012
We got to sail our Olympic Elliott 6m boat for the first time yesterday, which was amazing.
For this event we all have our sails given to us. All the sails have been branded up with our country flags, and to be out on the water with our 12 competitors practicing, everyone with their flags on their sails, was pretty exciting.
We did have an excited little moment when we were sailing out to the race course area when we were all like ‘Ooooooooooohhhhh’!
Just sailing past the Nothe area, trying to imagine what that grass hill is going to be like with 5,000 people on it all rooting for you, is amazing. I’ve sailed at other non-Olympic match racing events where there have been spectators but never as close as this. We did get a taste of a close crowd at the Perth Worlds last year but that was just hearing some of the team cheering for us at the top mark, this is going to be completely different.
We are comfortable in all conditions so we are not too worried if it’s windy or a bit lighter but for the spectators I hope it is sunny because I am so proud of our sport and I just want people to come down, watch the sailing and enjoy their day.
The venue has been getting a bit hectic this week with hundreds of volunteers, police soldiers and other officials around. The beauty of our sport is that once we are in our boat we can escape all that and just focus on us as a team with our coach on the water.
We are only able to test out our Olympic boats yesterday and on Saturday so today we are just making sure we are ready, getting spares and bits and bobs together, relaxing and doing a gym session. Ours is a really long event, and hopefully we will be involved until the very last day of the regatta, so we need to maintain our fitness at the same level for the whole of the two weeks. We will try to get into the gym during that time too.
We’re looking forward to the Opening Ceremony celebrations in Weymouth tonight. Only a handful of the team are going up to London for the main ceremony but we are doing something with the rest of the team on the beach and then a private team get-together. Then tomorrow we get three more hours practice in the boat, maybe getting a couple of practice races in, before it all starts on Sunday! It is very exciting.
Our day on Sunday is likely to start around 8.30am when we go for our weigh in, then we will have breakfast and warm up. We are due start after the first Finn race has finished on the Nothe course but are waiting to hear exactly how it will all work on Sunday. Whatever happens I will be doing my bit in that time to get my heart rate up and be really ready to start racing. Match racing is really, really intense short races so you can’t go in cold. I need to have warmed myself up thoroughly to really make every minute of the race count.
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