Cecilia Wollmann heads into the most important 48 hours of her young sailing career today at the Youth Olympics in Nanjing, China, when she takes to the water in Jinniu Lake with a view to eating away at the 15-point deficit between her present position in ninth in the Byte CII class and the bronze medal.

But before the 16-year-old Royal Hamilton Amateur Dinghy Club gets back to the business of mastering the light wind conditions, soaking up the village atmosphere at the Games has become a priority, especially after being the only Bermudian at the Youth World Championships in Tavira, Portugal, last month.

“It’s fun, I actually have roommates this time,” she said this week. “Most of the time they’re sleeping when I leave and when I get back.”

“I’ve met all of them for the first time and now we’re good friends. They’ve asked to come sailing with me, but I’m not so sure how much of a good idea that is, considering they’ve never been in a boat before.”

Apart from bonding with the Bermuda team, Wollmann’s eyes have been opened to the wider world that is the Athletes’ Village, a close-knit community with budding international sports stars of all race and creed. “It’s really fun so far and I’ve already met so many people,” she said. “I’ve seen so many people that I already know as well, so it’s been really good.

“I wish every place had a village like it. It’s so awesome and the food is really cool. It’s cool where we go but sometimes it’s kind of weird, I had rice for breakfast this morning.”

Having tailored her preparation to suit the light winds building up to the event, Wollmann is enjoying the 4-8 knot breezes. “I like it here,” she said. “I’m not sure if anyone else does, but once you get in time with the shifts, it’s really easy and you can keep getting farther ahead. But once you’ve messed up, it’s really hard again.”

As Wollmann enjoyed her day off, triathletes Tyler Smith and Erica Hawley took part in a mixed relay event for the first time to conclude their involvement at the Games.

Teams were comprised of two men and two women, with each completing a 250 metres swim, 6.6-kilometre bike and 1.8km run.

Smith’s team, called America 3, finished eleventh while Hawley and World Team 2 were last of the 16 teams.

Smith was the second leg for his team, taking over in tenth from Barbara Dos Santos, his female Brazilian team-mate. He was on his own in the swim before linking up with a Chilean athlete to work together on the bike. Smith maintained tenth before handing over his second female team-mate, Giovanna González, of El Salvador, with the final leg completed by José Solorzano, of Venezuela. Smith covered the distance in 21min 4sec after splits of 3:24, 10:08 and 6:23. Americas 3 were timed in 1hr 30min 17sec, eight minutes behind the winning Europe team.

Hawley races as lead-off for World 2 and left her team in twelfth place after finishing in 23:32, with splits of 3:27, 11:06 and 7:44. She had a strong swim and came out with the chase pack. She cycled in a pack of five women to try to minimise the lead of the faster riders and then zipped through the run.

Hawley then passed on to Teddy Boris, of the Solomon Islands, who covered the distance in 24:05 before Serena Rendell, of Zimbabwe, got through in 25:04 and fellow Zimbabwean Drew Williams finished in 22:08 for a total elapsed time of 1:34:49.

Jesse Washington concluded his Games with a third-place finish in his 100 metres freestyle heat. Washington’s time of 53.89sec, however, was not good enough to qualify for the semi-finals.