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, 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 Dorset Echo column, Skandia Team GBR members are bringing insight into the campaign for glory in 2012.

Here’s Weymouth’s Olympic Laser sailor Paul Goodison: IT’S BEEN a long trip but quite an awesome day for my first day in Oz.

After getting to Perth at 3am I managed a bit of sleep before being wide awake. The only thing to do was head down the club to sort my boat out.

After finding all the kit and a spot of lunch it was off out sailing. The Freemantle doctor was in with wind up to 25 knots and a steep chop. The sailing was great although I did capsize! I was pretty quick to get back in the boat after all the chat of sharks in the area.

I came in pretty tired, a touch jet lagged but after hearing the lads were off to Perth to watch the Kings of Leon I thought it would be a great way to stay awake listening to one of my favourite bands. It’s days like today when you realise how lucky you are!

Last week when I was looking out of my office window at a 470 and a 49er out on the water in a cold, grey Weymouth I was pleased to be going off to Australia for three weeks of training in warmer climates before the ISAF Worlds.

A lot of guys will be really fired up as the Worlds is a key part to their selection for the games, so it will be good to train against guys that are a little heavier and really optimising for the Perth conditions.

The goal is still to do well in Perth but having already been selected for London 2012, I have to look at the big picture and use the event as a chance to test some of the techniques I’ve been working on in pressurised race situations. I’ve been working really hard in the gym over the past month building up my strength, but by doing that I’ve had to compromise some of the cycling that is usually such a big part of my programme.

I’m hoping we will start seeing the benefits of that strength work on the water in Perth and it will be interesting to see how the decreased level of bike work translates into a seven-day regatta.

That’s the beauty of being selected early. You are able to periodise your training into blocks, whereby you can concentrate on improvements in certain areas for specified periods of time before bringing everything together to hopefully peak when it matters most.

I’ve had plenty of encouragement on how my campaign has progressed over the past fortnight, not least when my kit failed to turn up on time to a training camp in Tenerife and I managed to still do okay using branches retrieved from a nearby tree as sail battens!