SKANDIA Team GBR is the British Sailing Team in the Olympic and Paralympic classes.

The performance, development and transitional squad sailors train and compete across 10 Olympic Classes and three Paralympic Classes.

Here’s Weymouth’s Laser Olympic champion and Team Volvo member Paul Goodison...

IT WAS amazing seeing Weymouth brave the horrible weather and come out massively to support the Olympic Torch on Thursday.

I have to admit that I ended up watching the whole thing through binoculars from the balcony of our team accommodation at Portland with the local news on in the background as I’d been on a strict rest day.

But after seeing it all unfold in the distance I wish I’d got my offshore gear on and made the effort to get among it because it looked really impressive.

So much thought and attention to detail has gone into making the Torch Relay a success and speaking as an athlete who’s been to two previous Games, I know the great memories I have of the Olympic Flame being lit in the venues at Athens and Beijing.

Every day we’ve been out sailing in the past week we’ve seen the rowers practising taking the Torch from the academy across the Bay to Weymouth.

It all just brings an added realism that we are getting very close now.

We’ve stopped being able to train out of the academy now, so each morning myself, my coach Arthur and training partner, Nick Thompson, have been getting the Rib over to Weymouth SC to go out sailing and then travelling back to Portland on the RIB after.

It’s actually been nice to have a change of scenery and variety.

Normally, my day involves driving across the causeway from Wyke to the Academy so you don’t get a true sense of what is going on in Weymouth.

But having been over there a bit more last week, it’s all looking pretty cool on the beach and around the Pavilion.

Yesterday was the first day we are officially members of TeamGB but for the first few days I’ll stay living at home training as normal until we head off to our team holding camp.

That is when we really start becoming the close-knit team the British sailing team is known for.

It is the point where it becomes just the core group of sailors, coaches and support staff who are involved day-to-day at the Games and your mind becomes very, very focused.

Peripheral things change too, like we start having to wear TeamGB kit every day and you need your accreditation to get into the Academy.

But nothing can take your mind off the job you have to do (and being part of the British team) until you’ve given everything you can to achieve the one thing you have spent four years working towards.

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