Team GB Stars Talk To The Tab

Laurence Clarke: “Absolutely bricking it”

Bristol University’s Olympic athletes have given The Tab an eye-opening insight into their summer of success.

“It was absolutely terrifying”, explains Bristol graduate and 110m Olympic hurdler Laurence Clark. “Imagine if you ran into a hurdle and fell flat on your face in front of 80,000 people”.

Hannah Mills, silver medal winner in the women’s 470 sailing and Engineering student at Bristol, describes how she “desperately wanted to win, [but] we had lost the gold medal, and won the silver, so that day I was pretty gutted”.

Both were back in Bristol this weekend for the 25^th anniversary of the university’s High Performance Squad, along with London 2012 bronze hockey medal winner and Law graduand, Georgie Twigg.

Georgie deferred her graduation to move into the Olympic Village. “It was amazing, such a good buzz amongst Team GB athletes”. 

Georgie Twigg: Lizard Lounge fan

When she collected her bronze medal, as the youngest member of the women’s hockey squad, it felt “pretty special, [as] all my family and friends came to watch”.

A big fan of Lizard Lounge, Georgie was allowed to split her final year over two years so that she could train with the GB squad and eventually make the Games.

Sailor Hannah, who would also, “battle to get into Lounge”, chose Bristol because it’s really good for sailing and found the university very supportive.

“If I ever needed time off for a competition they would help me as much as possible”.

Hannah Mills:”gutted”

Originally hoping for gold, since picking up her silver medal Hannah has bounced back from the disappointment. “The reaction everyone has had to our team really helped to pick us up”.

110m hurdler Laurence was ranked 20^th in the world before hurtling into the hurdling final and scooping 4^th place, an incredible achievement, helped by his time at Bristol.

“[The university] were very good. I had to train in Bath every day, which would piss off most universities, but they wanted to facilitate my success”.

Surprisingly, Laurence says he “didn’t even take up sport until I got to university”. So it seems there’s hope for us all yet.

Photos by Katie Bend