French Olympic Sailing Week
Written by Stephen Park | 25 April 2010
So the European travel chaos that I am sure you have all heard more than enough about, proved some disruption to the team as we were scheduled to be in the South of France for the fourth World Cup event from earlier last week. Most of the team cracked on despite their flights being cancelled and thanks to our sponsors Volvo and Sea France managed not to lose too much time in their event preparation.
Lindsey Bell, Ben Chell and Pippa Wilson joined me on my road trip and we arrived in Hyeres only a few hours later than originally planned. Good French coffee and bouncy castles at the service stations broke up the trip with opportunity to stretch the legs, so all in the all a fairly painless journey.
Everything is now set up in Hyeres, with the team preparing for the racing with a team building evening at the local Go Kart speedway. Boilers suits and helmets at the ready, the team had tipped Nic Asher and Elliot Willis the ones to watch and therefore the ones to heckle, bump and block the most! These boys are dedicated car enthusiasts so were well prepared for the event, more so than for the regatta according to their team mates!
In the end Nic was the winner of the first round and I’m please to say despite Goody’s best efforts to keep me out of the running, and Dempo’s top qualification, I took the pole position in the second group! A great night for the team, it was a light-hearted evening and a great way to get the team away from the pressure of the event for a few hours.
Today is the first day of racing in Hyeres and most of the team is camped out in our hospitality base waiting for the racing to start as I write this. The sun is out but there’s not much breeze at the moment so in true Hyeres style, the AP is hoisted and we are shore side killing time. This event is a target event for many of the team, particularly the 470 men and women and with Saskia and Sarah taking to the water for one of their first regattas together. The girls have been preparing here over the last week and will be targeting building their skills and techniques rather than aiming for a podium position. That said, I am sure they will be looking for a top 10 result.
It’s pleasing to say that the Sonar’s will be racing this week as quite often World Cup Events have had to cancel the class due to poor registration numbers, as they have done with the Skud here. I’m looking forward to see how the competition evolve for all our squad and pleased that two of our Paralympic classes will have the chance to race alongside their Olympic teammates.
Keep an eye on the results and you can see some photos of the Go Karting in the photos section.
Sparky