The Daily Telegraph has reported that Olympic double medallist, Hannah Mills, has joined the Ben Anslie’s SailGP team in Bermuda.
Mills is listed as one of six women trialists for the Great Britain SailPG team, who are preparing for the first event of the 2021 season which will take place this coming weekend, 24 and 25 April.
Mills is selected for Team GB at hte Tokyo Games, sailing in the women’s 470 evwnt with crew Eilidh McIntyre this summer.
The pair recently finished fifth at the 470 world championships, and are due to compete at the 470 Europeans starting 30 April in Vilamoura, Porugal, before moving to Japan for the Games.
Twenty British athletes applied for the role in December, after SailGP announced a new ‘gender equity initiative’ last autumn, requiring all eight teams to hire at least one female athlete for the 2021/22 season.
The others five triallists are:
Anna Burnet – Crew in the mixed Nacra 17 class in the Tokyo Games.
Hannah Diamond – Former world championship silver medallist in the Nacra 17.
Ellie Aldridge – European Kite foiling champion, focussing on Paris 2024 Games.
Nikki Boniface – British Sailing Team member.
Emily Nagel – Member of the AkzoNobel team in the 2017/18 Volvo Ocean Race, currently Performance Data Analyst for Great Britain SailGP Team.
A final decision will be made on which female athletes will join the team full-time after the Great Britain Sail Grand Prix in Plymouth on 17/18 July 2021.
Following the Bermuda Government’s Covid-19 restrictions in response to the recent surge in active cases all sailing and preperation was suspended last week. SailGP applied for exemptions to continue its operations and the on-water safety trials during the Government’s seven-day stay-at-home order, which were granted on Thursday.
The SailGP League use modified F50 catamarans, with five crew on board. The present Ainslie crew are all male for this opening event but SailGP are keen for the teams to bring women into the crews.
The United States SailGP Team recently added Daniela Moroz a four-time Formula Kite World Champion, and CJ Perez a highly skilled competitor from Hawaii’s flourishing WASZP sailing circuit.
While the Australian team, added two successful candidates from the Australia SailGP Team female development programme, Olympic silver medallists Lisa Darmanin, and Nina Curtis, both of Sydney. Following pre-season training and development in Bermuda at least one of the athletes will be selected to join the team for the rest of SailGP Season 2.
SailGP’s second season will feature Tom Slingsby’s reigning champion Australian team, along with crews from Denmark, France, Great Britain, Japan, New Zealand, Spain and the United States.
It is not known if any of the teams will include women crew on borad during the Bermuda event.
The Bermuda Sail Grand Prix scheduled for 24 and 25 April 2021.
British fans will be able to watch all the action live on the pay TV channel Sky Sports.
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