GB Sailing gets golden glow
Thursday, 18th August 2016After all this talk about the velodrome and the running track, and after all the issues with winds and waste, it’s about time that there was some good news for Team GB on the water!
And it finally arrived, in the form of Gold medals for Giles Scott and (assuming they finish their last race) Hannah Mills and Saskia Clarke, plus a Silver medal for Nick Dempsey.
The medal for Scott means that Team GB have been Olympic champions in the Finn class since 1996, when a certain young Ainslie character made his debut at the games in Atlanta!
And it’s great that Hannah and Saskia have finally done it after they fell agonisingly short of Gold in 2012.
The glare of the media hasn’t been as high now that there are fewer celebrity sailors – plus, the coverage has largely been taking place on the BBC red button instead of the channels proper, but that doesn’t mean that the racing has been any less dramatic than in previous years.
On a broader view, the three medals won to date mean that the GB Sailing team have now met the Olympic target they were set by UK sport, which means that they’ll see a rise in funding for grassroots sailing, helping to encourage more people to get out on the water and give it a go!
