Four days of intensive training with the Olympic Development Squad at Portland and Weymouth National Sailing Academy starting this week (11th October) will concentrate Izzy’s focus on her performance and stand her in good stead for the forthcoming Youth World Championships.
Training with the squad on the 2012 Olympic venue at Weymouth has followed immediately on from her last race, also in Weymouth, which was the final race of the RYA Olympic Classes National Ranker series, held over the weekend of the 9th and 10th of October. The concluding set of races took place in warm sunshine and breezy conditions of 20 knots. Izzy finished fifth, but this was good enough to elevate her overall National Ranking to second in the country (up from last years third place) and only one place behind Olympic bronze medalist Bryony Shaw.
Izzy’s commitment to her windsurfing has meant she’s had very little time to settle into student life at Exeter University; she had her first lecture on Tuesday (5th) last week, but has missed out already this week and will miss nearly two weeks at the end of the month. In addition to the focused squad training Izzy will be participating in at Weymouth, the week will also include a ‘world-class’ day on the Friday in Reading. The squad will have the chance to learn some additional skills, appropriate to world-class sports people, such as how to present themselves when dealing with the press!
The RS:X Youth World Championships will take place at Limassol in Cyprus between 23rd to the 31st of October. Izzy will fly out on the 21st, meanwhile her windsurfing board (too big to fly) is making the journey separately over land. Izzy won the championships in 2009, when it was held at Bodrum in Turkey, so she will be especially keen to do well and retain her title of Youth World Champion.