SKANDIA Team GBR is the British Sailing Team in the Olympic and Paralympic classes.

The team consists of the Performance Squad and Development and Transitional squads, which jointly total around 70 sailors. The sailors train and compete across 10 Olympic Classes: Finn, Laser Radial, Laser, 470 men and women, 49er, Star, NeilPryde RS:X men and women windsurfers and, new for London 2012, Women’s Olympic Classes Match Racing.

There are three Paralympic Classes: the Sonar, 2.4mR and SKUD18.

Great Britain is the world’s top Olympic classes sailing nation with the British Olympic team sailors topping the medal table at the past three Games in 2000, 2004 and 2008.

In a new Dorset Echo column, Skandia Team GBR members will be bringing an insight into the campaign for glory in 2012.

Here’s Hannah Stodel of the British Sonar Team with insight into an exciting announcement: AS YOU might have heard from the announcement, we are the first British athletes to have been selected for both the Olympic and Paralympic Games, and as you can imagine, we are over the moon.

We are honoured to have been selected to represent the country as part of Paralympics GB and we are looking forward to the next year and the final run up to the London 2012 Games. It’s been a busy few years since the Beijing Paralympics and it’s not going to slow down now we have been selected I can assure you.

In a way now, selection means nothing. I know that sounds really bad, but the Games means more to us than just taking part – we really are in it to win it.

In terms of our goals for the London 2012 Paralympic Games, well that’s easy – we want Gold.

Writing that was pretty tough – I could have just put we want a medal, which is true in itself, but deep down, we wouldn’t be happy unless it’s a gold medal. As a team, John, Steve and myself have been together for nearly 10 years, in fact we really are like a married threesome. It’s in our partnership that we find our greatest strength, the fact that we know each other so well, both on and off the water and that really does make us a team to be reckoned with.

Next week, we are off to compete in the Sonar European and World Championships in Rhu, Scotland. We are very lucky that the Sonar as an International Class has racing both for able-bodied and for disabled sailors alike, meaning we can get plenty of racing in over the year.

So that’s it from me for now, I’ll keep in touch as often as I can.

In the mean time, please check out our website to see how we are getting on.

Visit britishsonar.com • See Hannah’s new blog at www.dorsetecho.co.uk/Olympics