Macgregor switches to catamaran

Great Britain's Lucy Macgregor has set her sights on sailing at the Rio 2016 Olympics in a new discipline.

The 26-year-old, who came seventh as part of the women's match-racing boat crew at London 2012, has teamed up with Tom Phipps, 24, of Falmouth.

Their aim is to compete in the Nacra 17 mixed two-person multihull event in 2016.

Britain's match-racing team, who were ranked second in the world in the Elliott 6m class, were forced to split after the discipline was dropped from the Olympic programme for Rio.

At London 2012 the boat included Macgregor and her sister Kate, who were the first sisters to sail for Team GB at the Olympics. Annie Lush completed the line-up.

"Tom and I have known of each other for a while but didn't know each other, but he has done a huge amount of multihull sailing before, which has helped my learning massively," she said in her blog.

Macgregor added: "If the Elliott was in the Games again for 2016 I probably wouldn't have got into the boat until after Christmas.

"But learning to sail a cat has actually felt like a break, and I wouldn't change the past couple of months for anything.

"I had to get back out on the water quickly because I was changing classes, so it's given me something really fun and exciting to focus on."