DORSET star Annie Lush vowed to continue the hard work after the British women’s Match Racing team made a winning start to Olympic year.

Daily Echo blogger Lucy Macgregor, sister Kate Macgregor and Lush enjoyed an ideal opening to 2012 as they struck gold at the Rolex Miami Olympic Classes Regatta over the weekend.

The Poole-based Match Racing trio, who have already been selected to compete for Team GB at London 2012, claimed victory by defeating Australia’s Olivia Price in the final.

The World Championship silver medallists went one better in Miami following a tough battle with Price’s crew.

In contrast to their quarter and semi-final successes, the British team took an early lead, winning the first match by a minute before pulling two ahead in the light and difficult conditions.

Price then fought back to claim the third match and looked set to draw level in the fourth after gaining a big lead on Macgregor’s crew.

But the British triumvirate responded to continue their preparations for this summer’s Games in fine fashion.

Lush said: “It was a great start to 2012 for us. It doesn’t feel like we sailed particularly well but we held it together, pulled off some great results along the way and learned a huge amount.

“You can see from the results during the week just how tight the fleet has become – everyone is pushing hard so there is plenty of hard work still ahead of us.”