Celebrities and stardom
Written by Saskia Clark | 26 October 2011
It’s been a pretty starry couple of weeks what with going to the BOA Olympic Ball and Hannah getting a shout for the 470 Girls from Snoop Doggy Dog on Twitter!
The Ball was spectacular - 2,500 people at Olympia and just some absolute legends there like Sally Gunnell, Denise Lewis, Sir Steven Redgrave and Matthew Pinsent. The evening was hosted by Stephen Fry and Miranda Hart, who were hilarious.
It’s just such a vast thing that everyone walks in and is just like ‘OHMYGOD!’ But everyone’s actually a bit shy and no-one wants to go bowling up to anyone and say ‘Hi!’ There are gaggles of sportspeople hanging around one another, and there were some of the familiar faces of people of athletes I’d met at Beijing 2008 who it was really nice to catch up with.
Probably one of the funniest things happened after the Ball though when I Googled to see if I could find a photo of me and Paul (Goodison) that I knew had been taken and randomly found it on a horsey website under the caption ‘Athletes William Fox-Pitt and Zara Phillips arrive arrives at the British Olympic Ball 2011’! Zara Phillips?!?!?!? I’m actually pretty scared of horses!
I’ve really enjoyed exploring the new Volvo Sailing app this week. It really looks the part and there are some great bits and bobs on there, like video tips from the Team Volvo sailors, information on the Olympic and Paralympic classes and how Olympic sailing works and other fun stuff. I loved the gym playlists and am looking forward to belting out the tunes the other Team Volvo sailors listen to while I’m in the gym to see if there is anything worth adding to my playlist.
The National Ranker event at the weekend didn’t go great for us. We hadn’t sailed in really light winds for what felt like ages but everyone else was in the same situation so that isn’t any sort of excuse. It was quite a packed fleet, we didn’t get the breaks and we ended up doing really poorly.
All our kit has now gone to Perth for the Worlds in December and we’re looking forward to getting a bit of time off before we head Down Under next month. We’ve also already started packing up our container for Miami in January.
The logistics side is the stuff most people don’t see but it is a massive part of our campaign planning; making sure you’ve got the right kit, in the right place at the right time wherever you are in the world. Especially with the 470 which is such a technical boat, you need to make sure you’ve always got enough of the right equipment to deal with whatever is thrown at you. We can have three lots of boats and kit travelling the world at the same point and working it out so you have the kit you feel happiest and most confident with at the most important events is a big task!
We’ve been enjoying the last of the warm weather when we’ve been out training. Even though it’s been pretty windy it has still felt amazingly warm for the time of year. We’re steeling ourselves for what we know will inevitably coming soon though. Brrrrr!
Saskia