When you can catch local athletes Matt Aldridge, Emma Wilson, Vita Heathcote, Hannah Snellgrove and Tim Nurse in action at the 2024 Paris Olympics
AS excitement builds ahead of the 2024 Olympic Games which start on Friday, the A&T gives a rundown of our local athletes and when you can catch them in action.
The local area is blessed with five Olympics-bound competitors – rower Matt Aldridge, British Sailing Team members Emma Wilson, Vita Heathcote, and Hannah Snellgrove, and a travelling reserve Tim Nurse, who flew out with the hockey squad.
Some forecasts predict Team GB will collect more than 60 medals, but with only 13 predicted golds, our athletes will hope to surprise.
Aldridge, who grew up in Burton, and his men’s four crew went unbeaten throughout 2023, but this year has been more challenging. However, they believe they can take gold.
Christchurch’s Wilson, who won bronze last time out at the Tokyo Olympics, took silver at the Paris 2024 test event 12 months ago and will be one of the favourites.
Heathcote, from Lymington, recently won silver at the 470 World Championships with crewmate Chris Grube, and she is aiming for a medal at her first Olympics.
Snellgrove, who has shown impressive resilience through-out her career, can never be counted out. The Lymington Town Sailing Club member suffered from a poor start at the test event in Marseille, but a string of top-10 finishes boosted her confidence.
Finally, Ballard School’s Nurse narrowly missed out on selection to the 16-man squad, but he will be on hand to step in if needed as one of two reserves.
Matt Aldridge
Men’s four rowing team member Aldridge, who began his journey at Christchurch Rowing Club, said: “The squad we have at the moment is full of current Olympic, world and European medalists, so it’s highly competitive, so, the fact I’ve managed even to make it to this stage and gain selection for the games is an enormous achievement, and I’m incredibly proud.
“It is quite daunting as it’s arguably one of if not the biggest sporting shows on earth, but that adds another level of excitement and pride to be a part of this experience.
“I don’t doubt we will be able to have a good race and leave everything on the water. Whether that performance is good enough for a gold medal amongst such a talented field of incredibly fast fours is yet to be seen.
“I personally think the margins will be very close, and we could go out and win, but we could just as easily come fifth, but I definitely believe we have the ability to win a gold medal.”
Aldridge’s time on the senior GB Rowing Team has not always been plain rowing. In 2022, he tested positive for Covid the day before the start of the World Rowing Championships and had to watch his crewmates claim the title from his hotel room.
After fighting back in 2023, he was re-selected to the men’s four, and the crew retained their world championship title, finishing the season unbeaten.
Aldridge continued: “2023 was an incredible year, for sure. We went through it unbeaten and had some incredible races. However, this year has been much harder, and we’ve had lots of setbacks and bumps in the road.
“Personally, because of the season we’ve had, I don’t believe we are favourites to win going into the event anymore; I think that pressure now lands on the Americans and the Kiwis, so we can take that pressure off ourselves and go out and put together the best we can do, which when we get it right, we know is the fastest in the world!”
The 28-year-old is still strongly connected to Christchurch Rowing Club, where he began his journey under his father and coach Steve’s tutelage.
“I definitely wouldn’t be here in the position I am currently in without the support of Christchurch Rowing Club”, he added. “The amount of support I received as a junior at the club was incredible.
“That has been continued right through my career. I’m so grateful to everyone at the club for everything that has helped me get to where I am now.
“With it being quite a small club on the south coast, competing against the big London-based clubs or the big public schools was always hard. But I wouldn’t swap it for the world.
“The coaches, the friends, the memories I’ve made at the club will stay with me forever.”
Aldridge’s father, Steve, who still coaches at Christchurch Rowing Club, said: “Each time he hit a milestone, I kept thinking ‘it can’t get any bigger than this’!
“Even way back when he was 14, and he won the South Coast Championships in a single scull, and then when he was 16, he won the British Rowing Junior Championships, but then the journey carries on.”
Aldridge, who attended Burton Junior School before joining Ballard School – where he became head boy – is getting married next year to Sophia Heath, a fellow rower he met at Oxford Brookes University when they raced as part of the GB U23 rowing team.
Steve continued: “He was always very focused; he has a strong sense of right and wrong, but on his sporting side, he was very determined.”
He played rugby at Bourne-mouth Rugby Club and was a high jumper at school and at Bournemouth Athletic Club, which led to county selection for both Hampshire and Dorset.
“It was then that you really noticed that all his personal bests would come at major events – when the pressure was on, he would pull it out of the bag”, said Steve. “His best rugby games were as captain, leading as an example from the front.
“He knew he had to train all the time at 17, but he also had a job at the local pub in Burton, The Fisherman’s Haunt, getting up early to clean up inside and out before school to not affect his training.”
Another hugely influential coaching figure was the late Mike Green, a very technical coach who made a huge difference to Aldridge’s rowing.
Steve added: “It’s quite a relief now; I just sit back, relax and enjoy the racing, although enjoy is probably the wrong word.”
Aldridge was the captain of the Ballard School rugby team, and he still holds the school’s high jump record.
Former Ballard head of boy’s sport and current head of Religious Studies, Jeff Whalen, said: “I was constantly asking Matt to be the next Dean Macey, the famous decathlete, as he was so good at all athletics events – throwing, high jump and the best 400m runner at school.
“He was a natural decathlete as he was so good at so many different things.”
Emma Wilson
Another possible medal could come from one of the only five British Sailing Team members with Olympic Games experience, 25-year-old Olympic medallist Wilson.
The former Ballard School pupil, the youngest sailing team member at the last Olympics, held in 2021 after the Covid pandemic, won windsurfing bronze in Tokyo.
Wilson, who lists Mario Kart as one of her many passions, is now competing in the foiling iQFoil class, which is due to make its Olympic debut.
She said: “Tokyo taught me a lot of lessons, but also taught me a lot about myself. I think the most important thing for me is just to keep enjoying it because that’s why I started it in the first place – I always try to keep it fun while working hard.
“I don’t really see myself as a favourite. I think anyone in the top 10 could win, and that’s what makes it exciting.
“I feel like I’m still learning the IQFoil since after Tokyo, I’ve had much less time on it than the girls I’m competing with. But I really believe in myself, and I will give it my best.”
Wilson follows in her mother Penny’s footsteps, who competed in windsurfing at the 1992 and 1996 Olympic Games.
She added: “After Tokyo, I said I’d like to go again and for my family to be able to come and watch it.
“I think Paris will be pretty different, and I’m not sure how similar it will really be, but the on-the-water experience won’t change too much, and at the end of the day, we have just got to race around inflatable marks as fast as we can.
“I think it will go down to the wire and be pretty exciting!”
Vita Heathcote
Another local heading into the Olympics in excellent form is Royal Lymington Yacht Club’s Heathcote, who, with crewmate Chris ‘Twiggy’ Grube, recently won silver at the world championships in the pair’s second event.
Her sailing journey started when she began racing Optimists on Lymington River when she was seven before the Olympic dream materialised after leaving school.
Vita, who will make her Olympic Games debut in Paris, said: “The campaign with Twiggy was very much a whirlwind. We teamed up mid-selection trials, so the pressure was on right from the word go.
“I’m just very excited to be part of this thing that I’ve been hearing, talking and thinking about for so long. I know it’s going to be a once-in-a-lifetime, very, very special experience, so I’m excited to feel that finally.”
Her journey has included spells with long-time sailing partner and fellow Royal Lymington Yacht Club member Ryan Orr and her brother before teaming up with 39-year-old Grube, who came out of retirement.
She continued: “The thing with sailing is, and particularly so at the Olympics, is that anything can happen.
“No medals are a given away, and the fleet certainly does a lot of switching around in performance, so it’s really hard, but we are there to win a medal, that’s for sure.
“The silver medal at the worlds was definitely a massive boost for us, as we didn’t really know our capabilities, so that event showed us – we know we can do it!”
Vita, the niece of two-time Olympic silver medallist Nick Rogers, wants to become a doctor after sailing.
“Royal Lymington Yacht Club has been my sailing community from the word go”, she said. “That’s where adventure, competition and practice all started and thrived.
“I feel very connected to my club and the body of water that is so familiar to me. I started sailing from Lymington with my friends, who are still right beside me to this day!”
International sailor and long-standing RLymYC member Phil Lawrence, who raced at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, said: “It is wonderful to see a young, talented sailor like Vita come through the junior sailing programmes at the club and fulfil her Olympic dream.
“Vita and her crew, Chris, have worked so hard to achieve Olympic selection, and we wish them every success at the games.”
Hannah Snellgrove
The final sailing team member, Snellgrove, has taken the scenic route to make her Olympics debut.
Despite funding being cut off in 2014 after being removed from the national program, Snellgrove took matters into her own hands by crowdfunding to buy a boat in an effort to qualify for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
Then, after requiring surgery on her knee, a serious back injury cast doubt on her Paris dreams, but the 33-year-old refused to give up and will now make her Olympic debut in the ILCA 6 class.
She said: “It’s been a long road! I wrote in my diary when I was 15 that I wanted to go to the Olympics one day – it’s taken about 10 years longer than originally planned, but we made it eventually!
“The Olympics feels like a whole different experience to the world championships. We have worlds every year, and that comes with pressure, but the Olympics is the real pinnacle of our sport.
“It’s the only time really that the general public and all my friends and family will get to watch me do what I do, which is amazing.”
Hannah, a folk musician who regularly performs at festivals, worked as a journalist with the New Milton Advertiser & Lymington Times while crowdfunding for her new boat.
She continued: “The main feeling is excitement. Of course, I’m nervous, but we’ve also done the work, so I’m feeling ready.
“The test event was a confidence boost for sure. I had a difficult day one – which was also my birthday, to add insult to injury – picking up a penalty and was very far back.
“But I kept my head together and put together a string of top ten results after that and ended up in the top 10 overall.”
She began her journey at Salterns Sailing Club at seven to get out of the standard PE sports at school before sometimes training with the RLymYC and joining Lymington Town Sailing Club.
She added: “Salterns, with its islands and lake, really shaped my love for the sport. Going out on the water was a proper adventure.
“It’s a sailing club run by children for children, and it taught me a lot of life lessons as I was on the junior committee and eventually commodore.
“Lymington Town Sailing Club have been amazing throughout my career. I wouldn’t be where I am now without their support, particularly with fundraising events. It’s a brilliant, friendly club that I would recommend to anyone.
“I was also lucky to go through the Royal Lymington Yacht Club’s junior training programmes, which taught me how to sail on the sea and how to race.”
Tony Evans, who was a vital part of Lymington Town Sailing Club for over ten years and was club commodore before stepping down after four years in March, said: “Hannah has been a long-time member at Lymington Town Sailing Club, and we have been delighted to support her in her journey to the Olympics.
“Having been dropped from the GB team by the RYA in 2014, the club supported her with fundraising events to get her to the worlds, where she gained a top three place and, after a self-funded program, ultimately got re-selected to the GB team.
“Again, we recently ran a fundraising event to continue to support her campaign, and we are delighted to call her a member and a true ambassador of sailing in general and women’s sport.
“We are immensely proud of Hannah, as well as her tenacity and resilience in achieving her dream of competing in the Olympics.”
Royal Lymington Yacht Club commodore Michael Derrick said: “The club is lucky and honoured to have two members competing in this year’s Olympic Games. Vita and Hannah possess unbelievable determination and a real hunger to win a medal.
“Vita and Hannah are not ones to shy away from a challenge – they know what they must do.
“We wish them lots of luck and will follow the racing.”
Tim Nurse
Five months ago, Olympic selection looked a long way off former Ballard School pupil Nurse, but after a strenuous effort, he managed to secure a spot as one of two reserves.
The former Bournemouth Hockey Club player was not a part of the 18-man squad for the Olympic qualifying tournament in January, but he went away and put further emphasis on his physical ability while making more of an impact at club level.
Nurse, who studied at the University of Bath, said: “Even though I am a travelling reserve for this tournament, as they only take 16, I am very proud of myself for continuing to push myself to make the 18-man squad.
“My main thoughts before heading out to Paris are that I am super proud of the work I have put in to be part of the squad and the journey I have been on, and I would like to thank my family and friends for supporting me throughout my whole journey.
“I will be doing everything I can to be the best teammate to the squad and will always be ready if I were to be called upon.”
The 25-year-old earned the first of his 15 England caps in February 2022 against Argentina and has featured for Great Britain 24 times.
He made his senior international debut for Great Britain in April 2023 but gained plenty of age-group experience as a student-athlete.
He helped GB U21s win back-to-back Sultan of Johor Cup titles in 2017 and 2018 before captaining the GB Hockey Men’s Development Squad in 2019.
He added: “I have no idea whether I will be called upon during the tournament, but If I am, I will be doing everything possible in the background to make sure I am ready to give my all for the team.”
At school, Nurse excelled at anything sports-related, excelling at football, rugby, and hockey, where he was team captain.
With so many athletes coming from New Milton’s Ballard School, headmaster Andrew McCleave said: “We are so proud of our former pupils and their achievements.
“While it was clear they were destined for great things while here, it is fantastic that they have shown the determination and resilience to make it all the way to the Olympics.
“We have been delighted to welcome each of them back to school over the last few years, and all of us at Ballard wish all of them the best this summer.”
