Lucy Macgregor will be hoping to make her Olympic debut in the Women’s Match Racing this summer. She has quickly established herself as the leading British helm in the Elliott 6m women’s Olympic Classes match racing boat and, along with her team-mates Annie Lush and Kate Macgregor, will very much be one to watch.
With the Olympic year finally here, we caught up with the 25-year-old to get her thoughts on the Games.
Now that we’ve finally reached the year of 2012, how are you feeling?
Yes definitely excited but I think a little apprehensive as well. It’s scary how quickly time is going - I think when New Year came around it was a little bit of a shock to the system really! But still super excited that we’re in the Olympic year now and it really is the countdown to the Games.
Unfortunately, you didn’t make the team for Beijing in 2008, did that make you more determined?
Yes, I think it did. When I was campaigning for 2008 I was obviously putting in my absolute hardest but I don’t think I realised quite how much I wanted it until it was announced that we weren’t selected. I think it was at that point that it really hit me how much I wanted to go to the Games and represent Great Britain, so this time round it’s definitely given me an extra boost to really go for it and put 100 per cent into everything we do to make sure we succeed there.
Does it mean more to you, the fact that it’s a home Games?
Yes, but I mean it’s hard to say isn’t it because I’ve not actually competed in an Olympics elsewhere. Certainly it’s amazing to see how much support there is and how many more people are interested in the Olympics this time round, it being on home waters. It’s certainly a once in a lifetime opportunity to compete in a Games here with your friends and family watching so it will be really special. I think you can see in a lot of sports the athletes that have stayed on for that extra cycle to have that opportunity to compete on home waters.
This is the first time women’s match racing has featured as an Olympic discipline - does that make it even more important to you?
At the end of the day we just want to win an Olympic medal and preferably a gold one. Whatever class it was going to be this time round I’d be going for it and want to come out with the same goals. It doesn’t matter too much to me that it’s only in this time round, but at the same time I think it’s going to be a fantastic event and I think it’s a huge shame that it’s not in next time. I think if we could leave 2012 being the Olympic champions and then there potentially not being one again it would be something quite special.
How did you feel when you found out you’d be representing GB?
It was great, it was brilliant getting the phone call saying that we’d been selected. In many ways it wasn’t a huge surprise in that we were the only team really at that point going for the spot but nonetheless it was certainly a huge relief, but also it then soon became very real and spurred us on - giving us extra enthusiasm to go out there and train that bit harder.
Can you talk through your race/training diary up to the Games?
Well we’re off to Miami this month for our first event of the year, a World Cup event, and that’s at the end of the month (Lucy and her team went on to win gold at this event). Then we’ve got a couple of months where we’ll just be training in Spain and that will be our last opportunity really to take things apart and really work on all the little details before we go back into the racing season again which starts in April.
Who would you say is going to prove your biggest rival?
It’s been amazingly open in the match racing, surprisingly so over the last couple of years, and often at every event we have a different winner so there’s a lot of people, certainly at this stage, that could medal this summer. Although, I think the nations are starting to come out to show who is going to be the main threats but within each nation there’s sometimes a few teams so it’s all quite interesting still.
Holly Patel and Jessica Whittington, Sportsister
The Women’s Sport Magazine
Image credit: Paul Wyeth/Skandia Team GBR and Richard Langdon/Skandia Team GBR
