Match Racing Campaign for the Olympics in 2012
The GBR Match Race Girls are one of the top International Women's Match Racing Teams and have been selected to represent Great Britain at the 2012 Olympic Games in this exciting new sailing discipline. Having gained National, European and World Championship titles, and rapidly risen through the ranks to lead the World Rankings, Lucy Macgregor, Annie Lush and Kate Macgregor are a promising prospect for the future of British Sailing.
Since learning to sail in Poole Harbour as children, Lucy and Annie have always been a driven individuals. After a successful youth sailing career for Lucy, and gaining 'blues' in three sports at Cambridge University for Annie, they both entered a full-time Olympic campaign with Shirley Robertson for Beijing 2008. In 2009 Lucy and Annie launched their own campaign for Gold in 2012, in the new discipline of Match Racing. In 2010 they were joined by Lucy's younger sister Kate, who is herself a top crew in her own right having won a number of championship titles and Gold at the 2007 Olympic Youth Festival in Australia.
Catch up on the latest news below, find out more about the team, or use the menu on the right to explore this site.
Double World #1 in the latest rankings by us and our training partner Ian Williams....go GBR! 2012/05/16
Credit: Sander van der Borch
Credit: Richard Langdon
Credit: Jesús Renedo
Credit: Lloyd Images
Credit: Lloyd Images
Credit: Lloyd Images
Credit: onEdition
Credit: Toby Melville
Credit: Richard Langdon
Credit: Richard Langdon
Credit: Richard Langdon
Credit: Richard Langdon
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Double World #1 in the latest rankings by us and our training partner Ian Williams....go GBR!
World Cup Regatta no.3 – Hyeres
Sunday 22nd April, 2012
It’s less than 100 days until the Olympics starts and the number of events left is dropping quickly!
Today was the start of the 3rd ISAF Sailing World Cup event of the year in Hyeres, France. It was a breezy day with many classes not getting out on the water at all but the Match Racers made it out on time and managed to get 3 flights in before having to return to shore because of the conditions.
We didn’t race today but will be on first thing in the morning for 7 races straight. The forecast is for quite a lot of wind again so it will be a pretty tough day, but we have trained quite a lot in big wind recently so it will be good to finally go racing in it! The plan is to complete one full round robin with the 17 teams before going into the knockout stages, I fear it could be a week of quite a lot of hanging around but lets hope the wind plays ball and we get some really good racing in instead!
Follow the action on Twitter via hashtag #2012SOF, or check out the Semaine Olympique Française website.
Keep you posted,
Lucy x
Back to Weymouth
Monday 16th April, 2012
I have a bit of an apology to make! While having dinner with one of my friends and biggest supporters the other night, I was reminded how long it has been since I wrote a blog, the tweets have been coming in but no blog. I am very sorry and thought seeing as it was Monday morning and she would be heading into work where no doubt she will spend some time going through the sailing websites sneakily behind her boss’ back, I’d get something up for her to read, so…..
Morning! Today is our first day sailing back in Weymouth this year. October when we were last sailing here definitely feels like quite a long time ago and actually I think all three of us are looking forward to getting settled back down here and getting some good hours in on the Olympic waters. In many ways we are now heading into the next phase of the year, the last two months we have spent in our own little world really, training in Cadiz. We are really happy with what we achieved out there. Apart from the final week which with a lot of breeze and a quick trip to hospital turned out not to be the most successful week, the venue was great and everyone we had come and join us as training partners added a huge amount to the training.
When we left Cadiz it was to head straight for Palma to the second World Cup event of the year – Trofeo Princesa Sofia. Finishing 6th there wasn’t our best event but we were not too disappointed really, we sailed very well in the opening rounds and although the quarter finals did not go our way we learnt a lot from the week so can’t really complain.
Since then it has be back home sweet home for the week. A ‘week off’ doesn’t seem to really exist any more, there is always plenty to do including a trip to Ipswich with Team Volvo for Live to see the kids at Alton Water – awesome to see so many out sailing during the Easter holidays.
I also did a spot of team building with the rest of Skandia Team GBR trying to improve my clay pigeon shooting skills and Annie, Kate and I had a fantastic night down at the Royal Motor YC in Poole this Saturday where once again we were taken aback by the amount of local support we have. Thank you to everyone who turned up, it really does mean a huge amount to us.
As I said, now we are in sunny Weymouth ready for a weeks training before heading out on Friday to Hyeres for our next event, the Semaine Olympique Française. We have an American and Russian team to train against this week, forecast is looking fruity at times but generally good so fingers crossed it will be a good week!
Keep you posted,
Lucy x
Looking forward to Princesa Sofia
Saturday 31st March, 2012
An update from Lucy ahead of the Trofeo Princesa Sofia Olympic classes regatta, the first European stop on the ISAF Sailing World Cup.
Time is passing quick!
Friday 2nd March, 2012
Wow, it’s March already, and there’s now less than 6 months until the Games!
Since racing in Miami in January at the Olympic Classes Regatta, Annie, Kate and I have been training in Cadiz, Spain. It’s amazing how much we were looking forward to going training after racing so much at the Worlds in Perth and then in Miami. We have had a great few weeks out here and still have three more weeks training before our next racing in Palma in April. There is nothing in particular we desperately feel we need to work on in this period, it’s more a case of having time look at different aspects of our racing be it tactics, boat handling, speed or fitness and looking at where we can improve and how we can build on our current strengths.
This week we have our American training partners here and we have been having some great sessions in big swell and decent breeze and in the session before we had a good mix of British training partners to sail against, all bringing different skills and ideas to the training. It is this time of the year we are really grateful to everyone that has supported our campaign. The generosity of individuals that have supported our campaign has allowed us to set up this training and really try and push the boundaries and learn as much as possible before racing season starts again. So, a big thank you to all!
Although we have moved south a bit for the winter, we are still needing to keep the fire going in the evenings to keep the house we have nice and cosy so I’m back to fire tending for now and will update soon (Maurice is the real master of the fires though!).
Check out the video below which explains a little more about what each of us gets up to on the race course…
Lucy
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