George Spedding, a member of Queen Mary’s Sailing Club, who lives in Chiswick and attends Latymer Upper School in Yr 10, has been selected to be one of only 25 sailors in Great Britain to join the RYA Topper National Junior Squad for 2007/8. This has been George’s goal since being selected for the RYA South East Zone Squad last year.

The purpose of the RYA National Junior Programme is to feed talented sailors into the Youth and Olympic Programmes at the appropriate age and ability, to enable them to succeed at World and European Championships in subsequent years. George worked hard all last winter attending training weekends around the country, through the summer he has competed in weekend and week long national events as far a field as Mumbles, Paignton, North Berwick, Sunderland and Bristol. He also attended the World Championships on Lake Garda in Italy.

George has competed locally too and finishing 3rd in the South East and recently winning the Sailing Solutions Trophy. George’s winter programme now consists of 7 residential weekends including one at the Weymouth & Portland National Sailing Academy, the venue for the sailing events in the London 2012 Olympic Games, with the support of the National Class Coach and a team of fitness, nutrition and psychology experts ready for another summer in 2008 of national and international competition.

George is currently seeking sponsorship from local firms who might wish to support teenage talent and ambition.