Our Olympians - Alison Young, from Bewdley

Alison Young was always competitive. Now she is going for gold.

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When Keith Young took his eight-year-old daughter for sailing lessons he had no idea he would one day watch her compete for an Olympic gold medal.

But her outings to Trimpley Reservoir developed into a love of the sport that has now placed her on the brink of competing for Olympic glory.

Like all Olympians coming to London 2012, the seed for her success came from her childhood.

Alison grew up on the edge of the West Midlands with the countryside on her doorstep. Her family home has always been on Grey Green Lane, Bewdley.

She was a pupil at the nearby Bewdley High School, having attended Wribbenhall first and middle schools.

Sailing was purely a hobby, but now, after recently winning in Laser Radial class at an international competition, she has suddenly become one of the favourites for gold this summer.

Keith, who lives at the family home with wife Pat, says: "We used to go to the reservoir as a family and spend weekends walking around it and then my wife organised sailing lessons for me with the club.

"My other daughter Kathryn has never taken to sailing. She is a fun-loving girl and her idea of sailing would be to get as many boys in the boat as possible and then see if they can sink it – she isn't competitive."

From a hobby, it soon became clear that Alison enjoyed sailing and was good at it too. She started competing at youth events nationally and internationally, culminating in a bronze medal at the International Sailing Federation Youth World Championships in 2005.

"The first boat we got for Alison was an Optimist, which is a bathtub-style boat but she was very persistent and single-minded," Keith says.

"We have never been a sailing family – I'm a retired property surveyor and so never thought about getting in a boat until my wife bought me those lessons." Keith and Alison became involved in the Midland Optimist Team, which is made up of parents and youngsters from the area who are keen on the sport.

It wasn't long before Alison was involved in the Royal Yachting Association and her enthusiasm for the sport carried on growing. As Alison, now 25, got older she ended up leaving her small Optimist boat behind and getting a Topper, which is an 11ft sailing dinghy.

"I had no idea in the early days that she would progress this far and that she would be a competitor at the Olympics – it is incredible when I remember her as a young girl in that small Optimist boat," says Keith.

"It must be like other youngsters who get into sports. Their parents watch them progress and whether it is cycling, running or athletics it still turns out to be a surprise when they head for the Olympics."

The chance to become an Olympian has come as a bit of a surprise for Alison herself.

She says: "I went to university but still tried to do as much sailing as possible. When you are young your concept of the Olympics is that it's this big event which comes along every four years, you don't know what it takes to get there. Now I know that to get to that level it takes a lot of training and hard work, spending hours in the water perfecting your technique."

Alison says her day starts at 7am and she is in the gym an hour later working on cardio and strength-building exercises. Her afternoons are spent on the water going over her technique and picking up new skills.

At the recent Skandia Sail for Gold sailing competition on the Olympic course at the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy in Dorset, Alison competed against 1,000 other sailors to win a gold medal.

"It was a good result and amazing to walk away from the event with a gold medal," she says. "You aim to do your best and if your best means a win, that is cool, but it was a close thing so it was a just a case of putting in my best performance. It's a good confidence boost going forward to the Games and if I can do as well at the Olympics then that will be fantastic." The lack of podium places for Britain in the Laser Radial class since it was introduced in 2008 at Beijing had lulled supporters into thinking there was no prospect of a medal. However, Alison's progress has changed all that and now she is expected to do well in the games.

Alison, who has a first class honours degree in civil engineering from Southampton University, will be competing in the same team as sailing greats Ben Ainslie, Paul Goodison, Bryony Shaw, Andrew Simpson and Iain Percy.

Ironically the sailor, who now bases herself in Portland near the Olympic course, admits she can barely remember the first time she clambered on to a boat.

"My dad had always wanted to give sailing a try and I enjoyed it because it is such a diverse sport – there is always something new to learn," she says. "There is a circuit around the Midland clubs with something happening every couple of weeks so it is fun to be part of the sailing community."

As for her parents, they say they will barely be able to contain their pride when they watch her go for gold.

Keith says: "For years we have watched her compete – standing at the side of lakes and reservoirs in the freezing cold. It can be miserable at times but there are also the good times too. It will all be worth it to see her at the Olympics."

Fact file:

Name: Alison Young

Age: 25

Home: Bewdley

Sport: Laser radial class sailing

Inspiration: Coach Hugh Styles

Motto: Train hard, train smart