A GOLDEN GENERATION

REGULAR readers of the Bulletin will know that Majorca has played a key role in the preparations of the multi-medal winning sailing, swimming and cycling teams. All have been training here this year and the men's cycling team mounted its assault on gold in Majorca back in January before returning again for one last endurance stage in July.

The elite women's swimming team, including Rebecca Adlington was together for the last time here in Palma in April and sailor Ben Ainslie has been competing and training in Balearic waters for many years. In this week's Sunday Times, one of the travel features was headlined “I want to be an Olympian, too”. It offered a “a guide to golden sports breaks” and how to follow in the footsteps of Ben Ainslie, the cyclists and the female swimmers. However, one thing was missing - there was no mention what so ever of Majorca.

Considering times are not exactly golden in the tourist industry, this would have been a great excuse for the Balearic tourism chiefs to have mounted some late promotions in Britain and cash in on the Olympic fever. A huge fuss was made when the German football team trained here.