Lymington sailor Hannah Snellgrove wins Team GB Olympic spot for Paris 2024
LYMINGTON sailor Hannah Snellgrove has made the Olympic team to compete in France this summer.
Snellgrove (33) will take on the world’s best in Marseille this summer in the women’s dinghy class, sailing the ILCA 6, formerly known as the Laser Radial, in her first Olympics.
Snellgrove, who used to work as a journalist with the New Milton Advertiser & Lymington Times, secured a country quota place for Team GB at the 2023 Sailing World Championships last August with an 11th place finish, then won selection after finishing 10th at the 2024 World Championships last month.
The sailor has shown a tremendous fighting spirit throughout her career, overcoming being cut from the national programme in 2014 before crowdfunding to buy a boat in an ultimately unsuccessful bid to qualify for Tokyo 2020. Then, her Paris dream was thrust into uncertainty by a serious back injury, which led to doubts about whether she would ever sail competitively again.
She joins a stellar cast of athletes, announced for Team GB in October last year, including Tokyo 2020 medallists John Gimson, Anna Burnet, two-time Olympian Saskia Tidey, and Christchurch’s Emma Wilson.
Snellgrove will be among a host of Olympic debutants, including James Peters, Fynn Sterritt, Freya Black, Ellie Aldridge, Micky Beckett and Sam Sills.
She represented Britain at the Paris 2024 test event in Marseille last summer, finishing ninth, picked up a silver medal at the 2022 Princess Sofia Trophy regatta and has three national titles to her name.
Snellgrove, who learned to sail at the Salterns Sailing Club in Lymington at age eight, said: “It’s the biggest honour to be selected for Team GB. It’s been quite the 26-year project since first setting foot in a boat, and I think it would be fair to say I’ve taken the scenic route.
“The Olympics is the pinnacle of our sport, and it’s an opportunity to share the experience and thrills of racing at the highest level with friends and family and all those who have supported me along the way. It’s really humbling to think of all the things that people have done to help me during the course of my career.
“I would love to stand on the podium at the games, but my biggest goal is to go out in August and give a performance that I know is the absolute best version of myself as an athlete.”
Mark Robinson, RYA performance director and Team GB sailing team leader, said: “It is a great pleasure to announce Hannah’s selection to Team GB today.
“Such is the British Sailing Team’s strength over many Olympic cycles, with only one representative allowed to represent Great Britain in each class at the Games, it is often a long journey for our sailors to reach this pinnacle.
“I am very pleased that Hannah had the determination to stick with her goal to reach this point. I am sure she will represent Team GB with this immense inner drive and will do us proud at Paris 2024.”
Mark England, Team GB Chef de Mission, said: “Congratulations to Hannah on her selection to Team GB for Paris 2024. Olympic selection is highly competitive, and Hannah has shown a huge amount of tenacity and resilience throughout her sailing career. I am delighted that she will be able to fulfil her Olympic ambitions this summer in Marseille.”
Team GB has a rich history of excellence in Olympic sailing competitions, winning 64 medals, including 31 golds, more than any other nation.
