Zara: 2012 is my destiny
SHE has hit the headlines as a fashion model rather than a sports star in recent times but Zara Phillips revealed yesterday that she cannot wait to get back into the saddle and finally compete in the Olympics.
The Queen’s granddaughter hopes it will be third time lucky when the Games come to London in 2012, for she has already been forced to watch the chance of two Olympic medals slip from her grasp.
With her horse Toytown, injured, 27-year-old Zara could not even bring herself to watch Team GB win bronze in Beijing last year, as she faced the prospect of waiting another four years for her chance to compete.
“My mum was over there, my dad trains the Americans, so he was over there, my brother was just moving over there to live and Mike (Tindall, her boyfriend and England rugby union player) was on tour in Canada so I was on my own back here,” she said, recalling her frustration.
“It was just terrible and I didn’t watch any of it.
“It wasn’t that I wasn’t interested in how the team were doing, but it just reminded me of everything that had gone wrong.
“The Olympics is at the top of everyone’s wish list. It’s different from everything else.”
Injury to Toytown had also forced Zara to miss the 2004 Olympics in Athens.
Her bad luck continued last October, when her horse Tsunami II panicked approaching a jump during a cross-country event in Pau, south-west France.
The horse suffered a broken neck and had to be put down, while Zara broke her collarbone in the fall.
Now the hard-working royal, who has been riding since she was five and is current Eventing World Champion, is determined to put her bad luck behind her.
“Two of the worst things that can happen in this sport happened last year. I’m hoping that’s it for a long time,” she said.
Misfortune has already followed her into 2009, however. She recently returned to her car in west London to find the
windows smashed and a handbag with valuable jewellery stolen.
On a happier note, she has made a huge impact modelling clothes for her new sponsor, outdoor garment specialists Musto.
One bystander watching her latest shoot on a beach in Saunton Sands, Devon, said: “Everyone initially thought Zara was a professional model. She looked absolutely beautiful. When I told a person who shouted ‘Fit bird!’ that it was Zara Phillips he was quite shocked, but apparently she just laughed. There were no airs or graces with Zara at all.”
For her own part, Zara views the deal as a way of securing vital financial backing for her Olympic ambitions.
“It’s not modelling,” she said modestly, “it’s having my picture taken, though I was once on a bill-board in Times Square in New York. That was quite cool.”
