Sally Barkow a former Olympic sailor, most recently on board the all-female Team SCA in the 2014-15 Volvo Ocean Race - a podcast by Sarah Williams

from 2016-05-24T06:26:55

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Show notes

  • Sally shares how she first got into sailing and the pathway shetook to get to the Olympics in Beijing
  • Sailing at university and how she moved from being a new memberof the crew to leading the team
  • Deciding to become a professional sailor and how she followedher passion
  • What was involved in the 6 year campaign of getting to theOlympics. How she kept motivated over the years  
  • The type of sailing she was doing and how it works in scoringfor the Olympics
  • What she’s learnt about teamwork from sailing as part ofcrews
  • Heading over to China, and dealing with the differentchallenges before the games even started.
  • What happened in the the final medal race
  • The learning Sally took away from that experience
  • Taking a break from sailing and getting over the sense offailure and loss
  • “The hardest sailing you will ever do” being a member of thefirst all female team for SCA in the Volvo OceanRace 
  • What it was like being out on the boat; the day to day routine,working for 4 hrs on, 4 hrs off, dealing with the pressure ofracing while out at sea and keeping the focus on driving the boatforward
  • Learning as much as they could while sailing, and dealing withthe highs and lows while out at sea
  • Dealing with set backs, never giving up and fighting all theway to the finish line
  • The training they needed to do, to get as fit and strong aspossible before the race starts.
  • Getting respect from the guys for the job they were doing
  • The reasons behind the MagentaProject and what their aims are
  • The challenges going forward especially around gainingsponsorship 
  • Why you should give sailing a go!
“Thank you for showing girls and women around the worldthat we can accomplish anything and to dream big. Your perservence,drive and commitment to this gruelling competition is inspiring.” Billie Jean King 

The MagentaProject - aims to increase the participation of women atthe highest level of sailing and promote inclusion, diversity andpositive female role models in society at large.

The Tough Girl Blog was highly commended at the UK Blog Awards2016! 

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