Six months to go!
Written by Alexandra Rickham | 01 March 2012
Wednesday (29 February) was a strange, but interesting day. Firstly, I woke up to the news that it was six months till the Games.
After three and a half years, six months is now quite daunting, but very exciting.
In the evening I met up with fellow GB Sailing team mate, Hannah Stodel (Sonar class) and we attended an Olympic and Paralympic Women in 2012 reception hosted by the Deputy Prime Minister and his wife Maria Gonzalez Durantez.
The setting was just off Whitehall in an old government building. So old, you couldn't sit on the furniture because they were all antiques. It was a bit like being in a Jane Austen novel, I felt the need for a Georgian dress.
It was pretty cool, though. We got to meet Amy Williams, GB Winter Olympics golden girl in the skeleton. We also got to meet athletes from other disciplines, which is always quite an exciting experience.
One person commented that it's funny how we see each other every four years then pretty much not at all in between. She was right. The Games always suddenly pulls together people from all the various sports, who each go about their daily business for the other three years, then we are put together in a room and are supposed to just chat like old friends.
The event was great, but you do often get that really uncomfortable first day of school feeling, where you have to bite the bullet, stop being shy and just start talking to people.
We also spent a large percentage of the evening looking at familiar faces trying to work out which sport they were from and what their names were. Our biggest conundrum was Jane Torvill (1984 Ice Dancing Gold medallist). For the life of us we couldn't work out who it was. Finally, at the end of the evening, Hannah shouted she got it. Clearly we need to brush up on our Sports personalities past, present and future.
With International Women's Day coming up on the 8th of March it felt pretty amazing to be part of such a great gathering of the ladies of British sport. It definitely gave us a lot to aspire to over the next six months.
So back in the boats next week, the last half is here!