Alexandra selected for 2012

09 August 2011

Sailor Alexandra Rickham has become the first University of Bath graduate to be selected to compete at London 2012.

The Natural Sciences graduate has been selected to sail for Britain at the London 2012 Paralympic Games.

She partners Niki Birrell in the Skud 18 keelboat competition. The pair contested the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games in the same class finishing fifth, the best performance by a British sailing crew at the Games.

“It’s great to be selected, we’re really very happy and excited and looking forward to next year and putting in the hard work to try and ensure we get a medal this time around,” she said.

“The hard work is just about beginning – I’d say that everyone ramps up their campaigns and their preparations towards the big event, so we’ll be pushing harder than ever.

“A medal at London 2012 would make up for everything that happened in Beijing, and more!  It was a big decision for Niki and I as to whether would continue after Beijing – we’d had such a short lead up to Beijing that we didn’t really owe each other anything.  But there was unfinished business, so we did carry on, and we’re both determined to learn the lessons from before and perform at our home Games.

“Our recent World Championship win at Weymouth and Portland has definitely given us confidence for next year – not only for ourselves, but it was also important for the other teams to see we could lay it down at our home venue after a string of silvers at the Sail for Gold Regatta.  We showed at the right time at a major event that we could pull it out the bag and prove to the other teams that we can do it in the Games venue.

And she said she has fond memories of her time in Bath – she graduated in 2004 and said she didn’t want to leave. “I loved it so much I didn’t want to leave after the three years,” she said.

The British Paralympic sailing team had the honour of being the first British athletes to be formally selected to compete at 2012.

See our dedicated Olympic and Paralympic web pages on the Team Bath website.

Sponsors
Partners and Suppliers