SEVERAL Dorset-based sailors are about to get their Olympic dreams underway at The Paris 2024 Olympics.
Weymouth and Portland Sailing Academy is the base for many of Team GB's Olympic sailing team.
The first events in sailing get underway on Sunday, July 28, 400 miles south of Paris in the city of Marseille.
The first day's events include the Women's skiff category, with Portland-based duo Saskia Tidey and Freya Black partnered together in the 49erFX class.
Tidey spoke exclusively to Echosport how she is targeting a medal in what is now her third Olympics.
READ: Team GB sailor targets medal at Paris 2024
In Tokyo 2020, she finished sixth with Charlotte Dobson, but her new collaboration with Black has already proved fruitful claiming fifth spot at the World Championships to qualify Team GB for the 49erFX skiff class.
READ: Emma Wilson scoops silver Paris 2024 test event
Emma Wilson, who grew up in Christchurch but is now based at the sailing academy on Portland will also get her Games underway on Sunday.
The windsurfer won bronze three years ago, and comes into the games off an impressive run of form in the iQFOil Worlds in Lanzarote where she claimed a silver earlier this year.
Portland's Connor Bainbridge and Poole's Ellie Aldridge will also be the first to compete as Britain’s first ever representatives in the Formula Kite class, a new addition to the Olympic sailing roster for Paris 2024.
READ: Connor Bainbridge headed for Paris 2024
It will be the fastest event in the Summer Olympics with athletes hitting speeds of up to 50 miles an hour.
The athletes ride a short board with a hydrofoil fitted to it, lifting them around a metre clear of the water.
The power comes from huge kites which the athletes control using special lines attached to a bar.
READ: Poole sailor Ellie Aldridge selected for Paris 2024 Olympics
Both competitions get underway a week later than the skiff and windsurfing events at will begin on Sunday, August 4.
Bainbridge was the last athlete to make the team after earning his selection following victory at the French Olympic Week regatta at the end of April.
Aldridge was one of the first to make the team after winning silver at August’s World Championships to qualify Team GB an Olympic quota.
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