Team Sky learnt the ropes on a team building day with the British Sailing Team at the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy (WPNSA). Top riders including Tour de France winner Chris Froome and double Olympic gold medallist Geraint Thomas swapped two wheels for three sails at the high profile sporting venue which is now attracting not only the world’s top sailors and windsurfers but also top athletes from other sports.
A day of team building for Team Sky on site at the WPNSA previewed the sailing day, allowing the elite cyclists to make full use of the 2012 Olympic Sailing venue’s facilities and catering. As well as the obligatory fitness testing, Team Principal Sir David Brailsford used his team’s time to address all the staff and riders of Team Sky in Spinnakers Room overlooking Portland Harbour.
Eighty members of Team Sky were on site at WPNSA where they were ably assisted by some of Britain’s best Olympic and Paralympic Classes talents including WPNSA Director and Paralympic gold medallist Helena Lucas as well as double Olympic medallist Nick Dempsey and silver medallist Luke Patience.
Talking about the decision to run their post season team building at the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy Team Principal, Brailsford commented, “this year we just thought we wanted to do something a bit different in a world class, high performance environment.”.
Three ‘opening series’ races were held before the final Olympic-style double points medal race provided an exciting finale to the afternoon, with the British Sailing Team’s Alain Sign and Kate Mardel-Ferreria, and Sunsail crew Pete Walters and Jon Nabney guiding Team Sky’s Nathan Earle, Bernie Eisel, Hussein Fahmy, Soren Kristiansen, Xabier Artetxe, David Rozman, Rajen Murugayan and Tim Kerrison to the top step of the winner’s podium.
