'I LOVED THE FREEDOM OF BEING OUT ON THE WATER'

British sailing champion Hannah Mills, 37, shares the beginning of her sailing journey, why perseverance was the key to her success and how she balances training with life and motherhood

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I first got into sailing while on a family holiday in Cornwall when I was about eight years old. It was something I'd never done before as neither of my parents were sailors. I loved the freedom of being out on the water and so, when we got back home to Cardiff, I begged my parents to let me continue. I began sailing at a local club in Cardiff and progressed through the ranks to represent Wales at junior level and then went into Olympic campaigning with Team GB. My journey has been all about perseverance. My first Olympics was London 2012 and my sailing partner Saskia Clark and I came away with silver. We knew we wanted more, so we carried on training hard to go again in Rio 2016, where we managed to get gold. I then teamed up with a new partner and secured a second gold at Tokyo 2020, and straight from there I joined the Emirates GBR SailGP Team. It was a completely new world to be racing on 50ft foiling catamarans that fly above the water, but I was up for the challenge. It’s a feeling like no other, racing against the best sailors in the world on boats that travel at speeds o