Here’s a little of her story!

A: How did you get into sailing?

S: I started sailing at my home club. I live in Lymington and there’s a sailing club there where they let a bit of salt water in and your parents can walk up because it’s waist height so I leant with all my friends there. They had these camps called the Moppy Camps and they let you mess around and have fun in the water!

 A: What are you currently doing now?

S: I currently sail in the women’s 470 class with a girl called Elidh Mcintyre and it’s the dream. This will be my first Olympics. I was Hannah (Mills) and Sakia’s (Clark) training partner for London 2012, so I got a bit of an insight into how it all works, so this time I’m training hard and going for it.

A: What does it take to make that jump? You were still obviously working extremely hard as a training partner but being at the centre of a campaign is there added pressure?

S: I think we work well as a team and we work hard together. We always make sure we’re prepared, professional and we just don’t leave anything to chance. I think that’s the biggest step up with the professionalism of it. It’s what we want to do and we’ve made a plan of how to do it and how to be the best.

 A: I can see the passion in your eyes as your talking!

S: Before it was what I enjoyed doing and now it’s what I want. It’s why I do it because I want to win and I want to be the best.

A: What’s an every day routine for you?

S: Each day is really different and we have training days and sailing days. On a training day it’s usually gym in the morning, do all of our admin and emails and then a gym session in the afternoon. A sailing training day would be the check over the boat in the morning and then two hours on the water followed by a gym session in the afternoon. If it’s a race day, we’re very routine focused and we like to be in control of everything down to time. Up at a certain time, breakfast at a certain time, get down to the boat and at the race at this time. Everything’s the same every time so how can you go wrong? We know the routine and our coaches know our routine.

 A: How do you support yourself?

S: We’re funded through UK Sport and Lottery Funding, which makes a huge difference. It doesn’t cover all of our costs so we’re currently looking for sponsorship for our campaign and finding that is a big part of what we do.

We race because we love it so when you get to this stage and money’s an issue, it’s all learning and finding the ground a little bit. It’s hard but people are so supportive it’s great.

 A: What do you say to those who want to get into sailing?

S: When you’re out on the water you’re free and you can be in control of the boat at any age. It doesn’t matter if you’re young, old, experience or not…it’s such a unique feeling it’s hard to describe until you get out there and give it a go!

Thanks to the Source fawomaninsport.wordpress.com