Great British Olympic and Paralympic sailors have been announced

The Olympic classes were announced for Laser Radial, the 49er high performance skiff and in the Paralympics the 2.4mR class at the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy yesterday.

Stevie Morrison and Ben Rhodes will represent Team GB again in the 49er class. They went to Beijing in 2008.

Portland’s Alison Young will represent her country for the first time in the Laser Radial and fellow islander Helena Lucas completed the Paralympic Sailing team in the 2.4mR class.

The athletes said they were excited to be selected and looking forward to representing their country on home waters.

RYA Olympic manager and sailing team leader for 2012 Stephen Park praised all the hard work of the sailors.

He said that he believed that with the final additions to the team that both the Olympic and Paralympic teams had a great chance of bringing home gold.

He said: “We’ve now got 13 teams in the 13 events, Olympic and Paralympic, and as we go into the Games, I can honestly say hand on heart that we’ve got people who’ve got potential to medal in every single event – we’ve never had that before.”

He added: “That doesn’t mean to say that we’ll medal in every event, far from it, but in terms of preparing a good team the sailors have done an incredible job to date.”

2.4mR sailor Helena Lucas said: “I’m really proud to be part of the team and I’m really looking forward to the competition.”

She added: “I’m looking forward to getting out, training hard and getting gold.”

Alison Young said she would be working and training hard and said the team had a great squad and great coaches to help them.

She said: “I was pretty stunned when I found out. But it’s still a regatta and I still need to go out and do the process that works.”

49er sailors Stevie Morrison and Ben Rhodes both train locally five days a week. Stevie Morrison said: “We feel proud, it’s a huge opportunity.”

Ben Rhodes said an Olympics on home waters was a fantastic opportunity and the team were really excited to be involved.

He said: “It’s going to be massive and to be a part of it is huge.”

The full list of team GB competitors

OLYMPIC CONTENDERS

• Ben Ainslie, of Lymington, stays on Portland while training in the borough – defending champion in the Finn heavyweight dinghy class.

• Paul Goodison, of Wyke Regis, Weymouth – defending champion in the Laser dinghy.

• Bryony Shaw, former Weymouth student now living in Tunbridge Wells, Kent – RSX women’s windsurfing.

• Nick Dempsey, of Wyke Regis, Weymouth – RSX men's windsurfing.

• Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson, of Emsworth and Sherborne – defending champions in the Star men's keelboat.

• Hannah Mills and Saskia Clark, of Rodwell and Wyke Regis, Weymouth – women's 470 dinghy event.

• Luke Patience and Stuart Bithell – of Weston, Portland – men’s 470 dinghy event.

• Lucy Macgregor, Kate Macgregor and Annie Lush, of Poole – Elliott 6m keelboat, Women's Match Racing.

PARALYMPIC CONTENDERS

• John Robertson, Hannah Stodel and Steve Thomas, of Castletown and Easton, Portland – Sonar three-person keelboat

• Alex Rickham and Niki Birrell, of Epsom, Surrey and Easton, Portland – Skud-18 two-person keelboat.