Olympic gold medallist visits Bowmoor Sailing Club

Olympic gold medalist Matt Gotrel MBE visited Bowmoor Sailing Club near Lechlade over the spring bank holiday weekend, sharing his experiences with the club members.

Bowmoor Sailing Club has a reputation for providing some excellent training, especially for its youth membership.

The annual Optimist dinghy camp was held over the spring bank holiday week and was once again a huge success. As well as sailing there were many varied activities including BBQs and the ancient art of tie dye but one of the highlights had to be a visit from 28 year old Matt Gotrel MBE, ex-Optimist sailor who came to Bowmoor Oppy camp as a youngster in the eighties.

He explained that his passion is still for sailing but whilst at Loughborough University he discovered he had a talent for rowing which then took over his life. It involves hours of training in the gym as well as on the water! Matt was an international sailor spending two years sailing full-time and was a member of the British Skandia Team for 18 months in the 49er dinghy sailing class.

He is now a world class rower having won gold in the men’s eight at the Rio Olympics. He still prefers sailing as he thinks it is far more sociable and not so punishing on the body. He came along to Bowmoor to talk about his sailing experiences career path.

He explained that he has spent the past 4 years rowing but gave a wry smile when he said he is now thinking that it is probably time to look for a ‘proper job’.

A total of 4 Olympians visited this year’s camp. Simon Hiscocks: former 49er sailor winning silver in 2000 and bronze in 2004 and bosun to the British Sailing team at Rio in 2016, Mark Lyttle: a member of the Irish Olympic Sailing Team in 1996 sailing against Sir Ben Ainslie in the Laser Class and Denise Lyttle (Mark’s sister): sailed in the Europe Class in the 1992 Olympics and the 470 Class in 1996.

It was inspirational for the young sailors to spend time in the company of sailors that have been at the very top of this sport.

For more information on the Bowmoor Sailing Club, and how you can get involved in watersports, visit www.bowmoor.co.uk/