Triple champion on Olympic trail

THREE-TIMES Island Games high-jump champion Erica Bodman has raised the bar on her sporting ambitions.

The 20-year-old has her eye on a place in the Great Britain team after being accepted into the World-Class Start rowing programme.

Her short-term goal is to trial for the 2009 GB under-23 team, but long term it is to win an Olympic gold, although the 2012 London Olympics is likely to come around too soon.

And Mary McLachlan, her coach on the WCS programme, believes she has a realistic chance of achieving the short-term goal of a trial for next year's GB under-23 squad.

'We are always looking out for people who we think can make the Olympics. Erica did particularly well in the endurance tests. It suggests she has got we call a big engine, big lungs and big VO2 max.'

Bodman said having to give up athletics – she was forced to quit due to bunions – had left a huge hole in her life and she was grateful to have such an exciting new sporting challenge.