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 Skud-18.

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 Skud-18 sailor Alex Rickham who sails with Portland’s Niki Birrell.

LONDON 2012 will mark the culmination of four years’ hard work. It is all starting to become very real.

2011 has been an interesting and varied year with highs and lows. Conveniently, our season ended on a high with our third consecutive World Championship title.

In August we got the nod from the British Paralympic Association and gained early selection for the Games. It was everything we hoped for, and a true honour to be the first selected athletes.

For me, and I suspect Niki, it also very daunting.

Knowing all our friends, family and the whole country are watching is scary but also exciting. The great thing about being given the slot this early is the focus it gives us.

Not that everything hasn’t been about getting to the Games, but now every last bit of our focus and effort will be put into the next year.

We have the opportunity to try new things. It is also immensely helpful to the support staff knowing that their time and energy are definitely going into the London Paralympics.

We have been able to plan a calendar (which I now fondly call ‘the death of my social life’) which should hopefully ensure that coveted Paralympic medal.

To be honest, I think a year to go has also made me a bit emotional. Watching everyone’s championships over the summer had a more meaning as it starts to become evident who else will be selected from the other sports. The year ahead is huge – winter is mainly abroad competing and training.

From March we should be back in the UK working with our in-house training partners and learning as much about the venue as we can. Then it will come down that one race week where hopefully we can achieve the ideal of gold on home waters. The amazing thing about having a home Games is the support and excitement everyone is starting to feel.

I went into the bank the other day and this lady asked me if I was going to be in the Paralympics because she remembered reading something in the Dorset Echo. She was wishing me good luck and giving me words of encouragement.

In light of recent problems across London the Games will be a real celebration of not only sport but of London and the UK as a whole. For the Paralympics it is a return home. Having been a patient at Stoke Mandeville Spinal Unit, the home of the Paralympics, it means even more.

I hope next year’s Games will inspire people to get involved in Paralympic sport and I’m looking forward to being part of the greatest show on water.