olympic excitement

[bonneville]

My daughter in law, Penny Clark, is the British Olympic Sailing Team member racing the Laser Radial. There are 28 dinghies racing in this event and she posted a 2nd place yesterday and won the first race today so its fingers and everything else crossed in our home at the moment.

I took this shot of her training on Rutland Water last November with my 7D and beercan on a very overcast day:


This link is the Radial results page if anyone would like to follow her progress:
http://www.rya.org.uk/beijing2008/event ... sults.aspx

I took quite a few shots of her training and racing from my son's RIB (he is her coach) and will sort out a few to post on here once I've found a suitable forum (have we got one for boats yet?)

[David Kilpatrick]

When she wins a medal your pictures will be valuable!

David

[Greg Beetham]

I've done some race sailing and it's not as easy as it looks, sailing the shortest distance to a mark and maintaining winning boat speed is a very scientific business, she sounds like she knows what she's doing, I do hope she does well.
Greg

[bonneville]

Well, since it is all over we didn't win a medal but she did fantastically well, finishing in the top ten to be eligible to race in the medal race (after 10 heats). Penny came 7th in the medal race and tenth overall, but that is still tenth best in the world.

Sailing is an odd sport compared with some of the others. Medal winners in some sports can win a gold, silver or bronze in a matter of a few minutes or even seconds. In sailing they have to race ten races that can each last an hour or more, before they even compete for the spoils. Penny had a first, second and a third in her races, yet the three where she was further down the fleet was the problem. But I still like to think that if they gave medals for the actual races against the worlds top sailors she would have come home with a gold, a silver and a bronze

Still, they had a wonderful experience and there is a good clip from the BBC of her here: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3M9qJ8d_hg

Very proud of my daughter-in-law and so, as you can imagine is my son

[Dr. Harout]

Happy for you Brian. I feel your excitement.
The important thing is not to win but to take part in it.

[bonneville]

Happy for you Brian. I feel your excitement.

Thank you

[David Kilpatrick]

That's great really. Just getting in the squad was a medal by ordinary human standards! I was watching some small dinghies on St Mary's Loch on Saturday, and the wind was strong. One of them was going incredibly fast - I have no idea what speed, but it was like a motorboat and throwing a wake up behind it with spray, skimming across the surface.

David

[Greg Beetham]

That's a very respectable first time effort in an intimidating Olympic "take no prisoners" environment, 10th is right up there in amongst the best in the world where the differences are small, just depends on whether the lucky charm was working good, on the day.
Greg
ps One good thing, there won't be as much travel for you guys at the next Olympics.