Riviera’s Olympic Athlete in training for the London 2012 Games

The 2009 World champion sailor and Olympic contender, Nicky Souter, has just been awarded the Australian Female Sailor of the Year award at the 2010 Australian Yachting Awards in Sydney this month.

Nicky has recently returned to Australia after competing in the world championships at the 2010 ISAF Women’s Match Racing World Championship in Newport, Rhode Island in September where she won a bronze medal.

“The level of the racing in the World Championships was a lot higher than last year with really tight nail biting racing.  This made it a lot of fun.  I love the challenge of close racing,” Nicky said.

The 26-year-old, along with other members of the Australian Women’s Match Racing Squad have spent the past 10 months competing in various competitions in the lead up to the 2012 Olympics.  All sailors vying to qualify for the Olympics compete in the ISAF World Cup Tour with events in Miami, USA where the team came 4th followed by Palma, Spain where they came second, and they achieved first place in Weymouth, UK where the games will be held.  They also placed first in Sheboygan, USA and underwent gruelling fitness training at the Australian Institute of Sport base in Varese, Italy as they prepared for the London Olympics in 2012.

The London 2012 Olympics will also mark the introduction of women’s match racing as a sporting challenge to the event, and has all squad members determined to do their best to win.

Nicky, who works as a marketing and events co-ordinator for R Marine Sydney based at Rushcutters Bay is already a six times Australian Women’s Match Race National champion, adding the 2009 ISAF Women’s Match Racing World Championships in Sweden to her impressive wins, skippering a team of six to international victory.

Her skills are impressive and almost predictable given that Nicky virtually grew up on the water, ferrying across the Pittwater from her home on Sydney’s Scotland Island to go to school.

And long before she took up formal sailing lessons at 10, Nicky had been well versed in the manoeuvres, tacks and turns by her father, himself a keen sailor.

She started out on the nine-foot Manly Juniors, moving on to the Flying 11s and won the national championships in the latter category in 2001, when she was just 16 and competing against more than 90 other boats.

That was followed by an invitation stint as one of two junior sailors invited to help crew the 60 –foot Reichel Pugh yacht, Wild Oats, firstly on a training trip in Australian waters, then on its 2003 Admiral’s Cup win around the Isle of Wight.

Nicky later concentrated her efforts on match racing and went on to win the national women’s match racing titles in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, came second in the 2007 event, then won the 2008 and the 2009 titles, in Sydney, in August.

Although it’s still 18 months away, from here on in Nicky’s focus is firmly on her Olympic training and putting all her skills into securing a place in the final Australian squad.

Nicky is heading to Perth for a training camp in November and then she is off to Dubai for the final Louis Vuitton regatta, followed by training at the Institute of Sport in Canberra during December and then her first event for 2011 begins in Miami in January.

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