17th December 2007
Former Youth Sport Trust Beckwith Scholar Sophie Weguelin is celebrating more great news in 2007 as her sailing career continues to go from strength-to-strength.
The World 29er Champion, alongside sailing partner Sophie Ainsworth, has landed the invaluable Marlow Ropes Award just three months after making the step into the Olympic Classes arena.
This means the 18-year-old duo, who were invited to join the RYA Olympic Development Squad (ODS) shortly before September’s Skandia Sail for Gold Regatta, will get free rope for a year as they continue along the London 2012 Olympic campaign trail.
2007 is certainly a year both Sophies won’t forget in a hurry.
It started in Argentina in January when the former 420 rivals joined forces at the 29er World Championships and walked away with the Ladies and Under 19s titles.
The girls then justified the selectors’ decision to send them to July’s Volvo Youth Sailing ISAF World Championships by bringing home a hard-fought 29er silver medal from Canada.
Their eye-catching performances on the international Youth stage convinced RYA Olympic Development Squad manager Barrie Edgington to include the girls in this autumn’s ODS intake and they enjoyed their first 470 outing at Sail for Gold, where they finished 10th in a world class field.
And now, having both started the same three-year Sports and Exercise Science degree course at Exeter University, the new students can undertake the next 12 months of Olympic campaigning without having to worry about financing their rope.
Lymington-based helm Weguelin said: “The Marlow Ropes Award will help us a lot. It means we don’t have to worry about things breaking and it gives us the flexibility to try, move and change things around without worrying about the cost of having to replace the rope if our experiments don’t come off.
“Even though we were sailing the high-performance 29er dinghy immediately before we moved into the 470, we knew that because the 470 is currently the only double-handed Olympic Classes boat for women if we wanted to achieve our ambition of winning an Olympic gold medal together then the 470 was the boat we wanted to progress into sailing.”
The Youth Sport Trust Beckwith Scholarship scheme, which has recently changed to become Believe to Achieve with Kelly Holmes, is a scholarship programme which sees talented athletes receive funding towards the costs of their sport.
The athletes also receive support and guidance from the Youth Sport Trust’s Sport Performance team.