Paralympic hopefuls sail to European title
Alex Hovden and Kate Mannerings have won the 2011 SKUD 18 European Championships in Italy.
Held from the 24th to the 29th May 2011 just off the western shore of Lake Garda, the Access class European championships attracted 56 sailors from 10 nations. The duo of Alex Hovden and Kate Mannerings were entered in the SKUD 18 which is the two-person Paralympic keelboat class for the London 2012 games.
Having only come together as a team in August 2010 and trained regularly since January, Alex and Kate have come on leaps and bounds, winning the silver medal at the French Olympic sailing week in April, hot in pursuit of the reigning world champions.
The European championships saw them win 4 out of 8 races, to pull together a very consistent series despite the challenging and variable conditions that Lake Garda presented the fleet with during the course of the week.
Kate offers “Having started sailing last year, to moving up to an international competition in such a short space of time has been amazing – let alone winning!... After such encouraging results I can only hope that our success continues.”
Alex continues “To come away from our second international appearance together with the European title feels so surreal, but it demonstrates the benefits that we as a team have reaped from our intensive winter training programme. It also gives us a massive morale boost heading into the World championships in July.”
Alex is 18 and lives in Woking in Surrey. He has Cerebral Palsy which affects his ability to control his limbs. In the SKUD Alex steers the boat and makes the tactical and strategic decisions. Kate is 23 and works in Weymouth for PGL, a leading youth activity holiday firm. Kate is a lower limb amputee and handles all the sails and controls that go with them, a position that requires a large amount of strength and energy to undertake successfully.
Next stop for the team is the IFDS Disabled sailing World championships in July in Weymouth and Portland, the venue for the Olympic and Paralympic sailing events in 2012.
With the race for selection to the British Paralympic team continually hotting up, this is an event that promises to be extremely exciting for all the teams going for gold next year.
For more information on Alex and Kate and their Paralympic SKUD 18 campaign, please visit their website: www.gbrskud18.com
