THOUSANDS of volunteers could be called in to cheer from Weymouth's Nothe Gardens to prepare Britain's sailors for the buzz surrounding the 2012 Games.

For the first time in Olympic history, a ticketed spectator site is being held for the sport of sailing and Royal Yachting Association Olympic manager Stephen Park – Sparky - aims to ensure his potential medallists are not fazed by the crowd.

The sell-out Olympic sailing events are set to host 4,600 spectators a day on the Nothe peninsula, overlooking the medal race course, while additional crowds are expected along the coastline.

Another concern is that racing so close to the land affects the wind, and the Nothe area has been dubbed 'the wacky races' by Olympian Nick Dempsey.

At the conclusion of the borough's Olympic test event, Sparky praised the 'fantastic sailing venue' and the London Organising Committee (LOCOG) for doing 'a great job with the areas they wanted to test.'

He said: “They've been looking at race tracking and race areas, particularly the Nothe race area.

“In terms of spectating it's incredible, if you spend some time on the hill and think of 5,000 as a starting number there, all cheering and waving flags.

“It's going to be a great view of the race area.”

He added: “In terms of sailing, some days in certain wind directions it will be fantastic.

“We do have our concerns that the race area is a little shifty, particularly in light winds.

“From a race management perspective we've got to continually make judgements about whether to race there.

“If we get it wrong it would be a terrible shame if people who've trained for so many years could miss out on a medal just for the sake of trying to impress the crowd.”

The goal of Skandia Team GBR, which won six medals at last week's regatta, is to be 'medal competitive' in all 10 Olympic sailing events next year.

Sparky said: “On the day roughly half will come good so we should be in a good place to win three to five medals next year.

“It's down to the sailors on the day to determine what colour they are.

“We do have concerns that it will be different competing in the home environment.

“There will be a huge amount of British volunteers on the site, that gives us quite a lot of distraction.

“As a result of recent performances we're one of the favourites in most events, that again increases pressure.

“If we have a reasonable day, the atmosphere at the Nothe will be fantastic.

“One of the challenges we have to deal with is the distraction of having 5,000 people cheering and screaming.”

He added: “At the sailing event in China we did have people there but they were a reasonable distance away from the sailing area.

“Here the crowd are so close you can hear them, there's a huge amount of local support and sailors from around Great Britain will take the time and opportunity to see some of the world's best win an Olympic medal.

“We need to train for it, I might get people to come down before and prepare the sailors for that environment.”