Finding her feet

In the tough conditions of the London 2012 sailing venue of Weymouth Bay, Helema Williams is beginning to find her Olympian sailing feet, even if her results so far in the singlehanded Laser Radial have yet to meet her ambitions.

The 20-year-old from Manihiki is not quite in a team of one at the Portland-based athletes’ village – she has Anne Tierney from Rarotonga and coach Ben Paton, himself formerly one of Britain’s top Laser Radial sailors, on hand to help.

”It can get a bit lonely at times being the only one in the team but I know lots of people from other teams,“ says Helema who, despite some boisterous and challenging conditions, says she is starting to feel at ease.

”These are not really the conditions I wanted and from all the work we did in training I know I can definitely do better, but if they let us race in conditions that are predicted to be even windier on Wednesday, we will all be in survival mode, anyway.“

The messages of support continue to pour in, she says, so ”even if in some races you feel a bit down there are others in which you feel happy and it is good to know that everyone is watching.“

Helema’s series runs until at least Saturday and she will stay until the closing ceremony in London on Sunday August 12.

”Then I want to go straight home. I’ve been away for a long time and I miss seeing everyone. Sometimes here you can be just tired, hungry, and cold. It would be lovely to see the sun.“

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