Gorgs’ golden ambition…

Moray & Gorgs outside our offices in Chagford

As readers of this blog will know, Helpful Holidays sponsors Georgina (Gorgs) Geikie, British number one ladies pistol shooter. We have sponsored Gorgs for the past three years, and are continuing to help in her bid for Olympic gold next year.

Gorgs has a great chance – she was selected for the recent European Cartridge Championships held in Belgrade, where she achieved third place.

With only 10 months left before London 2012, Gorgs is now pushing her training schedule harder than ever. But last week she managed to take some time out to visit us here at Helpful Holidays to collect a sponsorship cheque from our General Manager Moray Bowater and to meet the team.

As Moray says, as soon as we heard Gorgs was going for Olympic gold, we were right behind her. She’s a great example of someone who is putting everything into reaching her goal and we’re delighted to support her.

A message from Gorgs: “I'm over the moon that Helpful Holidays has agreed to continue supporting me towards the London Olympics! I have a training and competition plan in place for this new 2011-12 season and Helpful Holidays’ sponsorship will make my first international competition this season, in Luxembourg, possible.”

We’d all like to wish Gorgs the very best of luck in her training, and hope to be able to write a future blog post celebrating her gold medal!

You can follow Gorgs on her website, on Facebook and on Twitter.

Interview with Gorgs Geikie – Part 2

Helpful Holidays has been sponsoring the British number one Lady Pistol Shooter Georgina ‘Gorgs’ Geikie for the past year – here’s part two of our interview with this young Olympic hopeful.

We were interested to get an insight into Gorgs’ training regime: “I do 3 or 4 hours a day of fitness training, which could be a mixture of working out in the gym, running and even horseriding. I shoot for 1.5 hours per day. But there’s a lot more to it than that – shooting is 95% psychology. You have to train your body and mind to react under pressure exactly as you want them to – to simply fire a shot. To do that you have to be completely in the moment, keep it as simple as possible. That’s not as easy as it sounds – when the pressure’s on, and noise is all around, absolute clarity and concentration is so important.”

After winning a bronze medal in Delhi, Gorgs’ sights are understandably firmly set on our home Olympics in 2012. “If I could win one tournament it would be the London 2012 Olympics. First I need to qualify for the GBR Team in order to be able to compete in World Cup competitions next year. Qualifying for the Olympics will be really hard - final selections are made at the start of 2012 and there’s only space for one from my event. But I can do it – and what’s more, I can win gold.”

Gorgs’ task has been made tougher with the news that funding has been reduced, meaning she has to rely heavily on sponsors to pay for her travel and training costs. “Sponsorship enables me to continue training and competing nationally and internationally. The first event next year is in Australia, so costs for that are quite high. All help is really gratefully received – without it I wouldn’t be able to continue competing.”

Helpful Holidays has been proud to be a sponsor of such an exciting and dedicated young talent – we wish Gorgs the very best for 2011 – and of course 2012!

Find out more about Gorgs by visiting her website: http://www.gorgs4gold.com. You can also follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Interview with Gorgs Geikie – Part 1

Helpful Holidays has been sponsoring the British number one Lady Pistol Shooter Georgina ‘Gorgs’ Geikie for the past year – and what a year it has been. Gorgs was part of an extremely successful shooting team at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi, bringing home a coveted bronze medal – the second of her career. We caught up with Gorgs last week to get an insight into the life of a young Olympic hopeful.

“India was a great experience, the conditions and facilities were much better than had been reported before the Games. The opening ceremony was very special – the Indians put on an amazing show, with lots of fantastic colours everywhere. We sneaked a big St George’s flag into the stadium, and ended up on the cover of the next day’s Hindu Times!”

The 22 strong English Shooting Team were extremely successful in Delhi, bringing back 19 medals between them. “Team spirit was fantastic, thanks to our team manager Peter Underhill, who held regular team meetings with us to keep morale high. Conditions were very hot and humid, but there was an area with air conditioning to cool down. In any case we had already held a test event in Delhi in February so we knew what to expect.”

Georgina’s bronze medal in Delhi was won in the women’s 25m sport pistol pairs alongside her partner Julia Lydall – who was the first to congratulate her: “I had fired my last shot, and put my gun down, still in the zone. Next thing, Julia runs up to me, and points above my head – I didn’t know what she was pointing at! She shouted ‘look, look, England bronze!’ and showed me the scoreboard. I was so excited and we both jumped up and down for several minutes!”

We’ll post some more from Gorgs later this week, including some insights into her training regime and her plans for the future.

Find out more about Gorgs by visiting her website: http://www.gorgs4gold.com. You can also follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Medals galore...

As you may know, Helpful Holidays is proud sponsor of local star Georgina (Gorgs) Geikie, Britain’s number one ladies pistol shooter, for a four year period right through to the 2012 London Olympics.

We caught up with Georgina to hear tales of her recent achievements at the 2010 Commonwealth Shooting Federation Championships in India. Back at her ‘day’ job behind the bar of the 'Ring o’ Bells' in Chagford, Gorgs proudly showed off her four medals - two individual bronzes, and a silver and a bronze in the team events.

"Our hosts looked after us brilliantly and the facilities were world class" said Gorgs, still glowing from her success. The Indian organisers were equally grateful to Gorgs. Having forgotten to arrange flags for all the participating countries they were saved by Georgina who showed remarkable foresight by producing from her bag a St Georges flag bought from a store in Okehampton and it proudly flew at the opening ceremony in lieu of the ‘official’ version. So Gorgs was literally flying the flag for Chagford, Devon, England and the UK (not necessarily in that order).

"I’m going for gold in 2012" she said without a hint of self-doubt. We're so impressed by her determination and right behind her attempts for that gold medal. You can keep up with Georgina's achievements on her website. Next stop, Commonwealth Games in October… go Gorgs!