Sarah Douglas: Navigating the obstacles

Sarah Douglas (CAN) is navigating the obstacles of COVID-19 as she prepares for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, offering this update since finishing sixth at the 2020 Laser Radial European Championship:

After coming home to Toronto from Poland, I completed my 14 day quarantine at home and prepared for the next adventure, which was to drive to Florida for winter training. But with the land border closed but for essential travel, it became an obstacle to get my equipment south.

My support team evaluated options and thought we would still try to cross the land border with paperwork explaining why it was essential for me to drive across instead of flying. However, that failed and I was left scrambling to figure out how to get my equipment and car across the border while getting on a plane myself.

Thanks to my high performance director Mike Milner and the Canadian Olympic Committee’s partner Rock It Cargo, my car and boat were shipped the next day and arrived in Florida days later. I am incredibly thankful for the COC’s partners and the help I received from my support team.

This winter, I am training with Team USA and couldn’t be happier with my choice. For November and December we are training in Clearwater, Florida and it has been delivering amazing conditions. We did a three week block with 14+ knot winds almost every day. Focusing on speed and technique, we went out for 3-hour sessions where we all pushed each other in all aspects of our sailing.

And for the food lover, in November I celebrated American Thanksgiving since it is such a big holiday here. Cooking the turkey was very stressful and a big undertaking but I can always rely on my stuffing recipe. This has been a crowd favorite for all Thanksgiving and Christmas meals in my family.

Trust me, after trying this (click here), you’ll never go back to boxed stuffing again.