August 13, 2008

USA Improves on Day 5

                                             
    The wind on Fushan Bay is light, and frustrating.  The boats look slow to
watch.  But let there be no doubt about the intense competition in this
Olympic regatta.  For the young USA squad, Wednesday was a big day.  In
the Yngling class, Sally Barkow, Deb Capozzi and Carrie Howe won their
first race, and stand third.  It was a big confidence boost for the team.
There are four sailors who have won gold medals in previous games in
this class and the Americans are right there in the thick of the battle.
But the Yngling was just one story.

    Over on the 49er course Tim Wadlow and Chris Rast dug deep after several
disappointing finishes and won an impressive three races in a row to move
into fifth and medal contention.  In the men's 470 Stu McNay and Graham
Biehl also won a race.  And Anna Tunnicliffe continues to lead in the
Laser Radial, while Zach Railey stands second in the Finn. And there is
more! Andrew Campbell went out and one his first race in the hyper
competitive laser class.

    So how did the USA catch fire over night?  The difference according to
team leader Dean Brenner is that everyone stopped worrying about the
final result, and just went out to sail.  And sail they did.  There is
still a long way to go but in surveying the results there are a lot of up
and down finishes.  Being steady will be the key to winning.  In most
classes a 6th place average will get you a medal.

    I give a lot of credit to the USA coaching staff for the turn around.  The
coaches look for little things.  When something works morale improves in a
hurry. Of course tomorrow is another day.  But the US Sailing Team learned
that they have the potential to excel.  It is an important message to the
sailors at 195 colleges, 365 high schools that field varsity sailing
teams, and 700 yacht clubs that run junior programs that sailing in
America is vibrant. There are a lot of motivated young sailors in this
country, who may one day want to give the Olympics a try.  And today Dean
Brenner and the US Squad showed us why.