My name is Aoife Hopkins I am a 16 year old Laser radial sailor from Howth Co. Dublin.
I am a member of the Irish Sailing Associations High Performance Squad.
The laser radial is the women’s Olympic boat and Ireland have qualified for a place at the 2016 Olympics in Rio.
I am delighted to announce that the Irish Sailing Association are putting me forward as a candidate!
In order to sail in the Olympics I have to be the top preforming candidate at the following events:
In addition I will have to attend a number of other championships such as the Laser Radial European Championship in Gran Canaria.
Unfortunately sailing is an expensive sport and I have to pay for Equipment, Boat Charter, Entry fees, Flights to events and coaching costs.
I have been doing really well in my sailing campaign so far and have been sailing at Olympic level competitions this year. I was recently 9th at the Youth European Championships in Portugal and 20th at the World Championships in Kingston Ontario in Canada.
I was nominated for Irish Youth sailor of the year 2014. I was 2nd overall (1st Youth Lady) at the Europacup in Brest (150 entries) over Easter. I am currently lying 81st overall in the World Rankings (July 2015 consisting of 550 people).
In June I competed in the Sailing World Cup in the UK. I qualified based on my impressive domestic and international results in 2015. The top 40 in the world (of all ages) were sailing in this event. I was the youngest competitor in the World to be invited and was honoured to represent my country at such a high level.
I have achieved my goals for this year which were top 10 at the Europeans and top 20 at the Worlds.
My ultimate goal is to win a medal for Ireland at the 2020 Olympics.
I addition to sailing I like doing all the normal teenager stuff watching movies, eating pizza, hanging out with friends.
It’s a struggle balancing school, study, fitness and sailing but my school Santa Sabina Sutton, coaches at ISA Performance and Sportsmed Ireland have all been a great help and support to me!
The approximate cost of the Olympic campaign is 20,000 euros. I hope to raise 5,000 through pledge sports.
Your help no matter how small will make my Race to Rio possible.