Olympic trio prepare in Australian heat for world championship

Praying for some relief from the remorseless heat of the W. Australia sun, Britain’s Olympic trio of the sisters Lucy and Kate Macgregor plus mid-boat Cambridge rowing blue Annie Lush open their campaign to win the women’s match racing world championship tomorrow.

Today had seen crews racing in 36C temperatures, over 95F in old money, with the spectators, although in a shaded grandstand, also preoccupied by the relentless attention of the notorious flies.

All 10 Olympic classes are staging their world championships simultaneously over the next two weeks. Britain, which won six medals in China, has set itself the usual modest target of four. It could win all three in a fearsomely strong Finn singlehanded dinghy squad led by current Olympic champion Ben Ainslie.

In France, a fruit and vegetable company leads a group of sponsors backing Britain’s Sam Davies in her bid to improve on her 2008 fourth place in the 2012 Vendée Globe non-stop singlehanded round the world race.

Savéol, based in Brittany, where Davies lives with her partner and three-month old son, and which claims to be one of the biggest tomato growers in Europe, will be joined by sub-sponsors who have enabled Davies to buy the Open 60 which, as Veolia, was campaigned by Roland Jourdain in 2004.