24 June 2009

Bryony Shaw, the Be Number 1 windsurfer who won a bronze medal at the Beijing Olympics last year, had to settle for a medal of the same colour at the RS:X European Championships in Tel Aviv, Israel on Saturday, although it could have been a whole lot worse for the 26-year-old in blisteringly hot conditions.

“I was in the mix for gold until Thursday, but a bad couple of races, in which a few things went wrong, left me a distance off the lead,” said Shaw. “But I had a really good penultimate day and a seventh-place finish in the medal race was enough to earn me bronze behind the Spanish pair of Marina Alabau and Bianca Manchon, who took gold and silver.

“The three of us have been battling it out for podium places in the past few months, but I was pretty pleased to come third, even though I didn’t race especially well in the medal race.

“It was a regatta in which the conditions didn’t really suit me, but I showed on Friday that I can come back well after a poor day, which was pleasing. I’m happy that it was ‘job done’, but it also demonstrated that I still have a few things to work on before the World Championships in September. The conditions in Tel Aviv were a lot different to what we will be focusing on for Weymouth.

“The regatta certainly highlighted the need for me to improve my fitness, but I’m pretty happy to be making the progress I am so far in the first year after the Olympics. I spent six months off the board after China, so it has been a question of getting back up to speed and getting my fitness back. And this has actually been the first event that my hands have been hard enough not to get blisters.

“With this being the first year of the Olympic cycle, the past few months have been an ideal time to work on my weaknesses, like not tightening up mentally in the heat of battle and learning to pace myself by taking a more consistent approach and thereby conserving energy.

“In conjunction with my coach, I have been going back to square one on a few things, which has kept me fresh and motivated. And I really believe that it will pay dividends in the longer term.”