120906_JoshAdams

On the surface, it may look like Josh Adams is walking into a hornet’s nest. The incoming managing director of U.S. Olympic Sailing inherits a team that, for the first time since 1936, returned home from an Olympic regatta without a single medal. The performance has made the team—and Adams’ hiring—the subject of significant scrutiny on the homefront. But a deeper look reveals the situation to be much less perilous for Adams, a former All-American sailor at Tufts University who comes to the team after a career at Sail magazine, including the last seven as publisher. Title sponsor Sperry Top-Sider, which signed on last spring, is committed through the next four years. Top athletes such as Paige Railey and Anna Tunnicliffe are already looking toward the 2016 Olympics in Rio, and the likely lineup for that regatta features four new classes, including kiteboard racing, a sport where the United States has proven to be quite competitive on the world circuit, albeit in a sport very much in its infancy. And with no medals in 2012, there’s nowhere for the team to go but up.

**In the 1996 U.S. Olympic Trials, you were second in the Men’s 470 class with Bob Merrick. Without getting too deep, because we have a lot to cover, what are the lasting impressions that experience left with you?
**We chose the 470 while we were still in college [Adams graduated from Tufts in 1994], because it was the easiest boat for us to transition to from the boats that we were sailing. We had sailed a lot of International 420s and then collegiate boats. We were a largely independent, young team, and fairly typical for Olympic sailors of that period. We were basically on our own; we got some great coaching from the Olympic program, but as far as funding and establishing the direction of our team—how we were going to train and improve our speed and technique—we were all on our own.

**Four years later, Bob sailed with Paul Foerster in the 2000 Olympics and won silver. What was it like watching that experience unfold?
**Bob and I grew up together, as sailors, friends. And so, on a personal level, I was ecstatic for Bob. And we’ve always joked that after the Savannah quad, Bob just needed a better helmsman. And he got one of the best. Paul’s one of the great American sailors in both one-design and high performance dinghies. And he just brought this level of experience and level of focus on technical development, so it was great to follow, and I was very happy for Bob.

**Did you ever look at that—and I don’t want to say you were jealous of his success—but did you ever think, “Boy, I wish I’d kept going.” You chose a different path; you focused on your career, but did his success awaken any pangs of regret?
**No. Going back to Savannah, we finished second in the Olympic Trials, and then our training partners, Kris Stookey and Louise Van Voorhis won the women’s Trials, so we stayed down there and trained with them all the way up to the Games. And then Bob and I decided: “Let’s give it a couple months to decompress and get away from it for a while, and then let’s make our decision.” And when we came together in the fall, I knew right away that I was done with the 470. A big reason for that was actually physical. I was a little big for the boat, and it wasn’t something that I wanted to continue—staying at fighting weight. So, with that being a big part of the decision process, there was no regret.

**Okay. Let’s look forward here. You are taking over for Dean Brenner, but that doesn’t tell the whole truth, because this is a bit of a new job, a new position. Give us the job description for your position, which, if I have it correct, is the managing director of the U.S. Olympic Team, or the U.S. Sailing Team Sperry Top-Sider.
**I’m the managing director of U.S. Olympic Sailing. That’s my official title. And we—on the Olympic Sailing Committee, which I’ve been a member of since 2005—knew years ago that we were at a point where the leadership of U.S. Olympic Sailing needed to be professionalized. The demands of the job, the scope and size of the program, are big enough that it really has to be a full-time job. We needed to move away from the volunteer aspect of the leadership that we had had to some extent. So that fundamental decision was made at the board level of US Sailing, and with the full endorsement and support of the Olympic Sailing Committee, to shift responsibilities of program management from the Olympic Sailing Committee Chair, to the full-time position. [ed.’s note: Adams clarified by email that his position will no longer be the chair of US Sailing’s Olympic Sailing Committee. “I wanted to point out that we will also be appointing a new OSC Chair. The OSC will function as an advisory board to the U.S. Olympic Sailing Program. The chair, functioning in a different role than what Dean has, will be the senior adviser of that group. Chair appointment TBA.”]

**Dean mentioned in Weymouth that he had a two-term limit on his job; is that changed with this new role that you’re filling?
**This is a job for life, isn’t it? [Laughs]. Ah, no, in all seriousness, both US Sailing and I are committed to Rio, but this job can go multiple quads, and I would like to see it go multiple quads. It’s a full-time job; there’s no term-limit on it.

**What are the differences maybe in the job now to the job Dean has been doing for the last eight years? He went from a volunteer, part-time position in 2004 to 2008 quad to a paid part-time position for the last four years. How will your job, which is now full-time, differ from his?
**Well, it won’t differ in that I take on the full scope of his responsibilities. So, everything that Dean was responsible for, I will be responsible for going forward. And so I will be responsible for the budget, for running the commercial program, and all of the revenue aspects of Olympic Sailing. Managing the Olympic staff, and so on.

**So what is it that makes you think you’re the right person for this job? How would you sell yourself to the cynical person who’s looking at you and wondering why you got the job as opposed to somebody else?
**Okay, fair question. Well, I have a deep passion for and experience in Olympic sailing, and Olympic class boats. And we talked about Savannah and my experience in the ’96 quad, which I should also note was an incredible experience because the world came to North America, which made it easier for a young team to compete, because the Games were in North America. But my Olympic experience actually goes back to 1988 as a young kid growing up in Newport, R.I. The Olympic Trials, back when it was a one-regatta event, came to Newport, and that’s when I bought my first 470, got the bug, and have been hooked on Olympic sailing ever since. So after ’96, I stayed close to the program, through friends who were both sailors and coaches, and then got involved in the management of Olympic sailing through my experience on the Olympic Sailing Committee. And I think that background over a couple decades in Olympic Sailing really has me well prepared for the whole experience. I’ve been a part of the program as a sailor, and I’ve been a part of the program from the management perspective. Also, my background in media, has given me 15 years of building partnerships, many of which will translate well in this job. When you’re the publisher of a media brand, you’re busy selling a lot of advertising and building a lot of marketing partnerships. Well, some of those same companies that I have worked with also support the Olympic program. It’s tough to put a number on it, but if you break down where I’ll spend my time, as the leader of U.S. Olympic Sailing, I’ll probably spend 70 percent of my time focused on revenue, and focused on all of our partnerships. And my experience in media, and sailing media, has me well prepared for that.

**This appointment was made before the Olympic Games. So I don’t think it’s fair to criticize your selection in light of the team’s disappointing performance in Weymouth, to say: “You are a part of this system that produced the most disappointing performance in U.S. Olympic Sailing in 60 years, and now you’re leading the charge.” But there is a strong feeling out there that with your hire, US Sailing is perpetuating the establishment that didn’t get us medals in 2012. What is your reaction to that?
**Well my reaction to that is that people will draw their own conclusions. Over time, people will see what kind of leader I am, and what kind of program I’m running, and what kind of strategy we put together. But to look at it in that simple light—that there’s no actual change in this change—it’s just a little premature to do that. I’m pretty confident in my ability to lead, and to lead a new strategy for this program, and to make changes where change is necessary. I think that over time, people will have a larger body of work from me to judge. At that point, let them judge away.

**We’ll get into that strategy in a second. Let’s look at the Olympics this year. You were in England for part of the regatta. What was your gut reaction to the U.S. performance at Weymouth?
**Disappointment, like anyone involved in the Olympic program. I was disappointed in the results and for our sailors, who trained very hard.

**Gary Jobson’s commissioned a panel to look at the 2012 Olympics. You are involved, some names from Olympics past like Andy Kostanecki, Ed Adams, and Jonathan McKee, and some more current Olympians such as Tim Wadlow and Andrew Campbell. That panel’s conclusions are still a bit down the road. Do you have any kind of first-take impressions on what led to this performance by the U.S. Sailing Team?
**We need to let the review process play out completely before we really draw any conclusions. I think the best way to go about this is to talk to all audiences who were close to it, especially the sailors; get their feedback before we really draw conclusions. As you noted, we’re pretty deep into the review process of the Olympic program, and we have a great group of talented and experienced people who have been involved in Olympic sailing, at many different levels: sailing, coaching, and also on the management side. This is going to be a comprehensive look at the Olympic program. It’s not just a focus on Weymouth. It’s a look at the entire quad, and even before this quad, and it’s a look at every aspect of the program. And we’ll make sure that all the key players in U.S. Olympic Sailing have a say. Once we get that, that body of information compiled, then we’ll be able to draw some conclusions about the program itself; it’ll give us a better understanding of what led to our performance in Weymouth, and then we’ll influence strategy going forward.

**Are you the right person to lead this panel, given that you’ve been on the Olympic Committee for seven years now, and you’re now the incoming director? It seems that if you wanted to get a really independent opinion, you would step away from people who were so involved with the infrastructure of the program itself.
**I strongly believe that I’m the right person to lead it. When we’re done with this review, there’s going to be a bunch of conclusions, and a set of recommendations that we’ll present back to the board and to the Olympic Sailing Committee. I want to use that body of information to influence our strategic direction. I want it to be as complete as possible, because this is a useful piece of information that we’ll be able to go back to throughout the entire quad. If you look at the alternatives to what you’re saying, which is having a completely independent panel without my involvement at all, then I might be handed a document with recommendations with less familiarity with how the review process went. And I may not be as excited to follow those recommendations. Keep in mind that there’s nine individuals on this panel. All have some connection over time to Olympic Sailing, but they are truly independent of the current program. Of the nine, only two have been on the Olympic Sailing Committee within the last 12 years.

**What do you hope this panel comes away with, what recommendations are you looking for? Are you looking for sweeping changes, or tweaks? Are you looking for more athlete feedback? What do you hope is the biggest thing that you get out of this review?
**It’s a great question. And there are two key areas that I’m really looking forward to hearing about. [One is] getting a real and complete understanding of our youth development process as it currently stands. There tends to be a lot of hand wringing in this country over the youth development process and for good reason, because in some ways it’s getting better, but in some ways there’s a disconnect between youth sailing and the Olympic path. And that’s something that I want to change, and something that needs to improve for long-term success. Another area is how we approach the performance side and how we prepare the members of US Sailing Team Sperry Top-Sider. This is where an independent panel can be really helpful. Many of the people on this panel have experienced past strategies, for developing sailors and classes. They come at it from both a sailing and a coaching perspective. We want to be able to combine the conclusions and the recommendations that the panel makes on the performance side of the program, with the debrief that we will get from the coaches following Weymouth.

**Dean Brenner had your job for the past eight years. When the hubbub dies down, he will probably be remembered for a couple things, the first of which is raising a lot of money, and putting the U.S. Team back on par with some of the top teams in the world in terms of funding. The second is turning the job of leading the team into a full-time job. I think history will look favorably on what he’s done. How do you leave your stamp on this team?
**I would like to have people look back on U.S. Olympic Sailing on my watch, and have it be known as the period in which we developed sustainable performance. And created a system that allowed us to continually develop sailors’ classes. I think at the end of the day, that’s what I’d like us to achieve, which is sustainable performance; and an effective long-term youth development strategy.

**Okay. That’s pretty succinct there.
**And just to elaborate, whenever I talk about the performance side of U.S. Olympic Sailing, it really includes all aspects of the program. It includes a huge youth development component; it includes everything we’re doing on the revenue side, because at the end of the day our sponsors and our donors need to be on board with our performance strategy, and they need to support it. Those will be our two areas of focus, and hopefully that is what the program will be remembered for, while I was on my watch.

**And how much of that is dependent on money?
**The funding side of Olympic Sailing is a huge part of it. We have great support from our sponsors, our donors, and the USOC, that we need to maintain, and we need to continue to grow. But I’ll also say that money is not the only answer. We have to make good decisions with the money that we raise.

**As many people know, the U.S. made a big change this past quad, going with an international system of regattas, which is probably more in line with what most countries do, to select the Olympic team. Previously the U.S. had used a lone domestic regatta. I think it was the correct decision. If there is one thing about it, though, I would criticize, it’s the distance between the regattas, which required our athletes to peak basically three times in the space of 14 months, for two Trials regattas that were eight months apart [Skandia Sail For Gold in June 2011 and the ISAF Worlds in December 2011], and then the Olympics. What do you think of the Trials, and what changes might you implement there?
**There’s a couple different ways of looking at that gap between Sail for Gold and Perth. On the positive side, it gave sailors time to develop equipment. They had time to look at new spars, and sails. So while they have to peak again, they also have time to develop, which we viewed as a positive. In general, our Trials process this time around was a huge step forward. We were the last country in the world to move to an international event series, and in the end, we picked a lot of the right sailors for the classes that were in Weymouth. Having said that, as part of this review process, we’re going to get a lot of feedback from sailors and coaches on the timing of it, on the structure of it, and all that information will make its way to the Olympic Sailing Committee, and we’ll quickly start to make plans for the Trial system for Rio. It’s a clean slate. We’ll look at everything. There are a lot of other unique Trials systems out there that we’ll look at and debate. At the end of the day, we’re going to stick to this general approach of using international events.

**We’re looking ahead to an Olympics that could well have 40 percent new classes: the two kiteboarding events, women’s skiff, and the coed multihull. How do you jumpstart those classes? What’s the best way to take advantage of the opportunity that exists there?
**The word there is opportunity. This is going to be a really neat quad; if all the decisions on classes hold up, we’re looking at 40 percent change in Olympic classes, and that’s unprecedented. You can also characterize these sweeping changes as finally making Olympic sailing a high-performance sailing competition, a high-performance dinghy competition. Look at the largest boat now: a 17-foot, lightweight catamaran. One aspect that is really positive and will help our preparation for Rio is the fact that there’s more symmetry in classes. So you’ve got the Laser, Laser Radial; men’s and women’s 470; men’s and women’s skiff; men’s and women’s kite. And that’s great symmetry, and we’re going to look to become as sufficient as we can with the training of our classes, which means making sure that each class is building a base knowledge of how to develop the boats, and the technique for sailing them, and that all of that information gets passed on across to the men’s and women’s teams, and also the youth development teams.

**U.S. Olympic sailing has always a strong do-it-yourself ethic. Even in the past quad, there was a lot more support for the athletes, but getting to that Olympic level was often something athletes had to do on their own. I’m betting that the big Olympic teams over in Europe: the Dutch, the Brits, the French, possibly the Germans; also Australia and New Zealand, they’re going to be throwing a lot of money at these classes, the cats and the kiteboarding. Do you match that simply with money? How do you jumpstart our athletes? If you wait for athletes of pull their campaign together and distinguish themselves, it may be too late.
**You’re right. And really, it goes class-by-class. There will be some classes where we’re going to have a solid concentration of sailors, and it makes it easier to get them all to work together, and to support them. And there will be other classes where we’ll need to be a little more hands-on, and make the opportunities happen for the sailors.

**What about retaining your top athletes? How you keep people like Anna Tunnicliffe, Zach Railey, Paige Railey, Erik Storck and Trevor Moore, Sarah Lihan … These are people who are maybe on the fence about continuing with another Olympic campaign. How do you keep them on the team so their experience in 2012 doesn’t go to waste?
**Well, I think we’ve seen success in that area, and the easiest way is to make sure they get good financial support from the program. But the support that they get from U.S. Olympic Program goes beyond just money. There are a lot of other resources they get from the program, especially when they jump to a new class. We’re at a point now where these multiple campaigners—we’ll use the example of Anna Tunnicliffe and Zach Railey—they need to really commit themselves to it. Gone are the days where you hop into a class and sail for a year and a half, or two years. It’s really hard to compete on the international level by taking that approach these days. So, we’ll do everything we can to help them continue on.

**How much do you potentially bend the rules for these people? For the past four years, the funding was very result-oriented, it was very straight-forward. I think a lot of people like that. But it did potentially leave some athletes maybe out on a limb, or a little bit underfunded for a variety of reasons. When you look at these elite athletes, guys who have done two or three Olympic campaigns, how much do you tailor the Team or the rule to them?
**If we’re going to achieve sustainable performance in U.S. Olympic Sailing, we need to broaden the base of sailors that gets involved in Olympic classes. There has to be a balance there between supporting our top sailors, supporting up-and-coming sailors, and also supporting classes. So, we’re going to build a strategy that will ensure that our top sailors who have earned it on a performance basis, and earned it on the water, that they get the support they need, all the way to Rio. At the same time, we want to build more class depth and a broader base of Olympic sailors. And that means coming up with a strategy that reaches more sailors.

**One of the other big decisions that was made, which was a big departure from the past for the U.S. Team, was the size of the coaching staff. If you go back four years or eight years, the full-time U.S. staff was two or three or maybe four coaches. This time there were a lot more guys hired for the quad, which takes money that could go to the sailors to hire coaches of their own choice. What do you think about that decision, and do you plan on having such a large full-time, or on-retainer staff as you did last time?
**The eternal debate in Olympic Sailing is how much money to spend on sailors versus how much money to spend on coaching. Both are important, and the argument can be made that money spent on coaching is money being spent on sailors. As we start to build our strategy for this quad, we will come up with a specific plan for how we allocate coaching funds, and how that balances with the money that’s going to sailors. We need to complete our review before we make decisions like that, but it is a really important issue that we’ll evaluate.

**We mentioned earlier the 40 percent new classes, that this is if the vote holds–which is a good point, because there is obviously quite a big push to reinstate the windsurfers, the Stars are angling to get back in, so is women’s match racing. US Sailing has been criticized in the past for the influence it’s exerted over these decisions. What do you think US Sailing’s role should be when it comes to deciding the Olympic classes? We have an outsized amount of power on the ISAF Council. How much should we influence the decisions, and what should be the factors in deciding how we influence the decisions?
**When those decisions are made, there’s a couple things that come into play; what’s best for sailing, and what’s best for U.S. Olympic Sailing. My philosophy on class choice is, we will prepare U.S. Sailing Team Sperry Top-Sider for whatever classes, for whatever Olympic fleets there are in Rio. We’re not going to lose a lot of sleep over the politics behind, or the decisions made about the classes.

Do you think that US Sailing should be pushing ISAF to pick classes where it feels the U.S. has an advantage? In the past the **U.S. delegation has gone [to the ISAF annual meeting] and pushed for a slate of classes that favors our particular skill set, or athletes. Is that something that we should continue to do?
**I think that oversimplifies it a little bit. We don’t just push for classes that give us the best chance at medaling. We do consider what is good for sailing, and what is good for sailing in the U.S.

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120802_49erPack

For American Finn sailor Zach Railey, the defending silver medalist, the writing has been on the wall since he started the regatta with four straight double-digit scores. Now, however, it’s in permanent ink. With two races to go and standing in 12th place, 34 points off the bronze medal, Railey must now fight simply to have a ringside seat for the battle royale that is unfolding between Jonas Högh-Christensen and triple Olympic gold medalist Ben Ainslie and will likely come down to Sunday’s medal race. Railey is 5 points out of 10th and will need to pick up a few points in tomorrow’s final two full-fleet races to earn the right to sail in Sunday’s medal showdown.

For Mark Mendelblatt and Brian Fatih, the U.S. representatives in the Star class, the news is a little better, but not much. They’re sixth, but after a fifth and a 10th today, they’re 23 points off bronze and silver and it would take a remarkable set of circumstances for them to pull into contention over the next two races. Mendelblatt and Fatih have sailed well, but have seemed to spend the entire regatta grinding back through a very dense and talented fleet. They haven’t been able to break out of the pack.

The lone bright sport for the U.S. team on Day 5 came in the women’s match racing where Anna Tunnicliffe, Molly Vandemoer, and Debbie Capozzi snunk past the Dutch team led by Renée Groeneveld on the final run and took a crucial win. The win gives the U.S. trio a record of 6-3 and leaves them one point clear of a three-way logjam in third place. Winning their next two match would assure the U.S. team at least of facing a lower-seeded team in the quarterfinals.

The U.S 49er team of Erik Storck and Trevor Moore had a heartbreaking day in the 49er. In the first race, they had a good start, hit the left corner, which should’ve paid well, and rounded the first mark in second-to-last. Over the next two legs they ground themselves back into contention, and were set to go through the leeward mark for the last time just outside the top 10. But a bobble during the douse forced them to round up, sail over top of the leeward mark, and then on the way back they capsized. By the time they righted the boat there was nothing left but to sail around the course and hope someone else met a similar fate, which no one did.

On the second race, the losses came on the first downwind, as they went from 11th to 19th and dropped nearly a minute behind the leaders. The finished 18th.

The two scores leave them in 13th overall, 30 points out of the bronze medal. There’s still eight races remaining, plenty of time to make up ground, but the duo no longer has any margin for error. One more big score will have them fighting simply to qualify for the medal race.

Today was Day 1 of racing for the Men’s 470. It didn’t go as planned for the U.S. team of Stu McNay and Graham Biehl. They got bounced around a bit in the first race, missing a few shifts, then fouled the Spanish boat off the line in the second. A 17-22 leaves them in 21st. There’s plenty of racing left in this class, but they have put themselves in a hole.

In the RS:X classes, Farrah Hall had an 18th and 20th and is 20th overall. Bob Willis was too eager in his first race—which finally came after two general recalls— and was caught over the line during a black flag start. His second race was a 28th and he’s now 18th overall.

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Finns: Races 7 and 8 on the Weymouth Bay South Course, starting at noon

Stars: Races 7 and 8 on the Weymouth Bay South Course, starting at 1210

Men’s 470: Race 1 on the Nothe Course, starting at noon, Race 2 on Weymouth Bay West Course, starting at 1330

49er: Races 7 and 8 on the Portland Harbour Course, starting at noon

Men’s RS:X: Races 5 and 6 on the Portland Harbour Course, starting at 1400

Women’s RS:X: Races 5 and 6 on the Portland Harbour Course, starting at 1530

Match Racing: Round Robin racing on the Nothe Course, starting no earlier than 1330.

Women’s 470: Practice racing on the Weymouth Bay West Course, starting at approximately 1340

Lasers and Laser Radials have the day off

Weather: It’s raining right now, but the forecast is more partly cloudy skies and a lot of breeze. The showers could bring some significant gusts with the potential for some brief spells of survival sailing. Yesterday Nathan Outteridge, the leader in the 49er class, said that the speedy skiff is fine up to around 22 knots. We could easily see more than that today and for those that remember the medal race in Bejing, all bets are off in that class once it gets to 25 knots, though a large part of the problem in Bejing was the waves.

What to Watch For:

Most eyes will be on the Finn. Can Ben Ainslie start to chip away at Jonas Hogh-Christensen’s 10-point lead. The British demigod needs to beat the Great Dane by at least two spots, on average, over the final four full-fleet races to put himself within striking distance for the medal race. Otherwise, Ainslie may find himself in the uncomfortably position of having to defend silver as opposed to going for gold.

And when those eyes are not trained on the Finn, they’ll be watching the Star to watch the heavyweight showdown between Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson and Robert Scheidt and Brune Prada. Mark Mendelblatt and Brian Fatih of the United States are in a position to medal, but need some top 3 finishes to solidify their position.

The business end of the women’s match racing round robin is here. It’s been hard to get too worked up about the match racing, with two-thirds of the fleet moving forward and no real carryover. But for the bottom half of the standings, today and tomorrow are crucial. The round robin is likely to wrap up tomorrow and every team, save for the winless Swedes who can do no better than ninth, can mathematically still qualify for the quarterfinals. Any team with 4 points or less has to be concerned about going 0-3 on these final two days and finding themselves on the wrong side of a tiebreaker and out of the quarterfinals. Anna Tunnicliffe and her team have just one match today, against the Dutch team that is 3-5. It’s a match the U.S. team should win, but there are no gimmies in this group.

The Men’s 470 gets going today and if the other classes are any indication, a good start can go a long way toward setting up a strong regatta. Will any of the favorites (AUS, GBR, CRO, NED, NZL) slip up? Will one or more of the dark horses, including the American pair of Stu McNay and Graham Biehl, pull out a career day and give themselves a confidence boost that can carry forward.

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When Anna Tunnicliffe and her team jibed to starboard about halfway down the run, I was sure the trailing Russians would pounce. But Ekaterine Skudina and her crew, despite holding perfect position for a covering jibe, didn’t. Instead they carried on and jibed a few lengths after the two boats crossed paths.

At first I didn’t understand the move, but it was soon apparent as the Russian team jibed, surged forward, and was then able to hold Tunnicliffe and her team out past the leeward mark. It was a bold move that required both guts and downwind speed but then again so do many race-winning moves. The Russian team rounded the leeward mark first, protected the favored right side on the second beat and went on to comfortably win a match that could serve as a preview of something further on down the line, possibly with a medal riding on the outcome.

The loss leaves Tunnicliffe (along with Debbie Capozzi and Molly Vandemoer) at 5-3 in the Women’s Match Racing round robin, and all alone in fourth place. One more win will all but lock up a spot in the quarterfinals where the round robin records serve only to seed the competitors. Still three losses in a round robin is approximately two more than this team averages.

If Team Tunnicliffe can win their final three matches they will at least face a lower seeded team in the first round, though this competition is quite tight and there’s little difference between first and last, as evidenced by Australia (currently undefeated) needing a last second comeback to beat Sweden (which has yet to win a race) earlier today.

Elsewhere on the waters off Portland, it was a glass-half-full day for the U.S. Sailing Team Sperry Top-Sider.

The 49er team of Erik Storck and Trevor Moore started off well, winning the pin end in the first start and then rounding the top mark in first. However a bit of bad luck—a trapeze bungee came untied and they were forced to retie it on the fly, costing them precious seconds on the first downwind leg—and some tactical miscues turned what could’ve been another race win into a seventh. An OCS start in Race 2 put Storck and Moore into damage control, which they did effectively, finishing 12th.

Those results actually moved them up in the standings, from ninth to seventh, and they are just seven points from bronze with 9 full-fleet races left. But they left some points on the table today, and that’s something they’ll be regretting this evening.

Paige Railey left points on the water as well. She was leading Race 1 at the top mark and finished fourth. In Race 2, she battled back from 13th to take ninth. A solid day, but she’s now in seventh overall and 18 points out of bronze. A day off and a change in the weather could be very useful, especially since two of the leaders, Allison Young of Great Britain and Annalise Murphy of Ireland, are best in heavy air. Murphy, in particular, struggled today with an 8th and a 19th, and those cracks could widen in shiftier, lighter conditions where she struggles a bit relative to the top competitors. Murphy will need to right that ship quickly or watch Evi van Acker of Belgium and Marit Bouwmeester of the Netherlands (2 and 7 points behind respectively) slip past her in the overall standings.

Rob Crane had his best race of the regatta, a 14th, but in the mixed zone he said he’s struggling to find his form in wind conditions with which he’s usually quite comfortable and isn’t sure what’s wrong. He finished 26th in the second race and is 32nd overall.

Bob Willis couldn’t duplicate his impressive start to the regatta. An 11th and a 25th have moved him outside the top 10 to 13th. But tomorrow brings breeze and the Portland Harbour Course for the Men’s RS:X, a perfect combo, he says, for his strengths on the RS:X.

Farrah Hall had a pair of 18ths today in Women’s RS:X racing. She lamented some disappointing starts and is looking forward to some light winds later in the week.

The Stars and Finns will be back at it tomorrow, and the Men’s 470 will see their first official action of the regatta, leaving only the Women’s 470 yet to start. They will do that on Friday.

Full results can be found here.

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The news from the women’s match racing course on Day 3 of the Olympic Regatta was good for U.S. Sailing Team Sperry Top-Sider. But only just. Anna Tunnicliffe, Molly Vandemoer, and Debbie Capozzi won both of their races by a combined seven seconds, or about a boatlength in sum. They beat Finland, a regular training partner, by 2 seconds, and the French team, led by former world champion Claire Leroy, by 5 seconds. One false step and the U.S. team would’ve found itself on the hot seat with five races remaining in the round robin.

As it stands, they’re tied for fourth with Great Britain, one point behind Spain and Russia, and two behind Australia, which is the only undefeated team after six flights in the Women’s Match Racing competition.

There were patches of joy elsewhere in the Olympic Regatta, but few that seem to indicate any hardware coming the way of the Stars & Stripes.

Erik Storck and Trevor Moore won their second race, which was a great sign, but offset by the 16th in Race 1. As usual, the 49er class provided a lot of inconsistency in regards to individual results. Storck and Moore are ninth overall, but just 9 points out of silver. Tomorrow should be a crucial day for this class as the throwout comes into play after and the breeze is expected to be quite strong.

Zach Railey finally found his rhythm, finished second in Race 1 and then eighth in Race 2, executing the sort of comeback that eluded him earlier in the regatta. That’s a medal contending scoreline, if carried over multiple days. But Railey’s dug himself a deep hole with four double-digit finishes and knows that even sailing as well as he did today will not lift him into medal contention. He’s 12th, 25 points off the bronze medal. He needs to make up much of that in the next four races, and he’ll need some sailors to make some missteps to do so. The medal race counts double, but there’s a limit on how much can be gained there since only 10 boats compete.

The surprise of the day for the American team was Bob Willis in the Men’s RS:X class. I can’t remember the last time a U.S. sailor scored top-10 results in a top international regatta (the Rolex OCR rarely draws in enough talent in the boards to qualify), and Willis brought home two of them today. He’s in seventh place overall, and more breeze, his favored condition, is on tap for tomorrow. The U.S. Women’s RS:X representative, Farrah Hall, also had a solid day, though not as good as Willis. She’s 21st of 26 after a 22nd and an 18th.

Paige Railey struggled today. A 12th and a 17th leaves her in ninth, and with some ground to make up. She needs a couple of strong races tomorrow to push back into the medal picture.

Mark Mendelblatt and Brian Fatih are well within striking distance of the medals, despite two races with which they were disappointed. They had an eighth and a ninth and are now sixth, with 30 points, and 13 points out of bronze. The Stars are off tomorrow and back in action on Thursday. Lighter breeze might benefit the U.S. team.

Finally Rob Crane had another difficult day in the Laser, a 30th and 28th leaves him in 36th of 49.

Quotes of the Day:

“Honestly, it’s like any other race. It’s always a thrill to win a race. And our mentality is going to be the same going forward: just taking it one race at a time, one start at a time. Hopefully by the end of it we’re right there fighting for a medal.”
—U.S. 49er crew Trevor Moore on winning an Olympic race

“I know I’m in a tough spot. I’m in a very tough spot with those first four races. All I can do is worry about the race that’s in front of me. We’ve got six races in the book, I’m going to worry about Race 7, and go on from there.”
—U.S. Finn sailor Zach Railey

“Yeah, it’s not that easy. Because you know most of the guys in the fleet including myself have had one average race, so you can’t just, you know, ignore the rest of the fleet. You know, my focus, as it has been the whole way through, has been on my own game, and trying to do the best job I can, and that’s all I can really do right now.”
—Defending Finn world champion Ben Ainslie (GBR) on whether it’s time to start focusing on hurting regatta leader Jonas Hogh-Christensen of Denmark.

“We’ve done a lot of racing here. It’s tricky; sometimes the wind can be 10-degrees further left, and it’s like a shifty course from the hill, and it can be a bit further right, and it’s a righthand track. Today it was just in the right direction to get massive lifts on port coming into the top. But I was watching, and there are a lot of gains to be made on the righthand side at times. It was going back and forward a bit. But typically if you’re at the front, the safest option was to go left and everyone in the fleet knows that.”
—49er world champion Nathan Outteridge (AUS) on the wind on the Portland Harbour course today.

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120729_Forster_Opening

The biggest question rolling around the media center as the 2012 Olympic Regatta gets set to kick off it what in God’s name was going through the mind of Team GBR manager Stephen “Sparky” Park on Friday night. The normally reserved Park, who’s in charge of the biggest juggernaut to ever hit Olympic sailing, seemed a little overcome by the moment as his sailing team (12 of the 16 athletes) was introduced to a crowd of 10,000 people gathered on the Weymouth town beach Friday evening. Upon being called up by BBC television personality Rob Walker, Park pantomimed a slow motion run across the stage before leaping into the arms of the very surprised and very worried Walker. Park easily outweighs the slight Walker by 40 pounds and for it moment it looked as if Walker’s legs would buckle under the load and both would crash to the stage in an awkward embrace. Fortunately, Park put down his legs, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Well everyone except for me, who was looking for something just like that to sprinkle the very slick ceremony with a dash of humility.

Personally, I’m not sure what to make of Park’s performance. If he is truly that relaxed, and he’s able to, through osmosis or some other method, impart that frame of mind upon his sailors, it could bode well for the British team. If on the other hand, this is the early signs of someone just a little bit overwhelmed by the moment, a little too keyed up, then it could be an ominous sign for the British team.

To get a sense of the pressure the sailors will be under this week, one only has to look at Saturday’s Men’s Road Race for the cycling team. The British team, stocked with the first- and second-place finishers from the just-concluded Tour de France, as well as the Manx Missile, sprinter extraordinare Mark Cavendish, was favored for gold. However, the road race is a 250-kilometer minefield of hazards, not to mention the 150 other cyclists waiting to pounce on every opportunity. There is no such thing as a sure bet. Yet when the Brits finished off the podium (behind even the United States, which snared fourth) the news tickers read succinctly that Cavendish and Team GBR missed out on gold, as if it were nearly a foregone conclusion.

If the expectations were that high for the road race, one can only imagine the pressure this country is heaping on the shoulders of someone like Ben Ainslie or Iain Percy or Paul Goodison, all returning gold medalists, all competing in a sport where the nature of the competition allows the cream to rise to the top and rarely does one mistake eliminate a sailor from medal contention.

Park is one of the best in the business, if not the outright best. He manages to keep the veterans happy and motivated and develop young talent at the same time. I am not spending too much time wondering whether he’s cracking under the pressure. But were I a fan of British sailing, I would’ve been a lot more comfortable had he simply walked across the stage, waved to the crowd, and shaken hands with Walker.

There were few surprises in today’s medal race. In the Finn class, Daniel Slater, Jonas Christensen, and Ben Ainslie were the top three after the first lap, with Zach Railey a little off the pace in fourth. Christensen, in particular, looked very quick, jumping out to a lead on the second upwind—Slater retired at the leeward gate—before retiring himself at the windward mark. In the Star, Iain Percy seemed to have the early lead, but Rob Scheidt’s speed stood out. He didn’t have a particularly good start, had to duck a couple of boats halfway up the beat, but was still second at the mark, and then, according to Mark Mendelblatt, ran away from everyone.

Summer, according to one local, was last week. “We had our three days of sun,” he quipped. I’d like to laugh, but I’m a little under prepared for rain and 60 degrees, which is pretty much the forecast for the next week, especially since whatever the temperature is here, it feels at least 10 degrees colder on the water. The British breeze goes right through you. Midweek is expected to bring some serious wind, which could make things interesting. Heavy air isn’t a problem for the favorites, but breakdowns could be. Fortunately the press boats, 35-foot Beneteau trawlers, are among the best press boats I’ve ever seen. Actually scratch that, they are the best, with some nice cozy cabins to retire to and watch the racing through large picture windows while staying nice and dry.

And that’s just one of the ways that this venue has outdone itself. Never before has sailing been so embraced. I always thought Sydney was as good as it could get for sailing, with people packed onto the vantage points on Sydney Harbour and crowded onto thousands of spectator boats. But it’s amazing to see how the town has gone all in for sailing. There are two big screens on the beach, a festival village and event a ticketed spectator location overlooking the Nothe course. If the wind is out of the WSW, as it was today, they plan to use upwind finishes (something new in sailing, they said at today’s media briefing, which brought more than a few snide comments from the veteran sailors and journos in the crowd) to bring the finishes as close as possible to the spectators. It’s great to see sailing get this sort of reception. Between the Amerinca’s Cup in Newport and this, sailing might just have a future as a spectator sport after all.

On tap for today:

Finns, Races 1 and 2. The first race will be at noon, the first official race of the regatta, and on the Nothe course. Zach Railey said this direction is extremely shifty since the course is in the lee of some significant hills; 40-degree shifts are not uncommon. The second race will be on Weymouth Bay West, one of the offshore courses, with the start at 1330.

Stars, Races 1 and 2: Both on the Weymouth Bay West course.

Women’s Match Racing: The match racing will always be on the Nothe course, with the exception of some of the fifth through eighth eliminations. It will generally follow one or two races of another fleet. Today it starts at 1330 after the Finn races

Practice racing for the 49er, Laser, and Laser Radial fleets.

What to Watch For:

Ben Ainslie has historically been a slow starter in the Olympics. In Athens, eight years ago, he started with a ninth and a DSQ, and the British press was apoplectic, especially about the DSQ, which was a little suspect. But he rebounded nicely and was winning the regatta after 8 races.

For the U.S. Sailing Team Sperry Top-Sider this is a big day. Our medal hopes depend heavily on Zach Railey and the Women’s Match Racing team of Anna Tunnicliffe, Molly Vandemoer, and Debbie Capozzi. A good start is important.

Mistakes. Look for upsets in the women’s match racing, or any alphabet scores in the fleet racing. While coming back from a bad first day isn’t impossible, it’s getting harder and harder as the level of the competition rises with each successive Olympic Regatta. Both Robert Scheidt and Mark Mendelblatt said the small Star fleet, just 16 boats, reduces the premium on getting a good start and that caution will be the name of the game on the line. The first race of the Olympics can cause a surge in adrenalin, however. Keeping it under control will be key.

The weather:

Right now it’s beautiful, partly sunny, not too warm, plenty of breeze. It’s expected to turn for the worse. Hopefully that will hold off until after racing. We’ve got rain on the horizon for the foreseeable future, so one nice day would be, well, nice. But at least we have wind!

Medal Predictions:

As I’ve said for a while. I’m putting the over/under on U.S. medalst at 2.5. Three or more would be something to shout about. Dean Brenner, the chairman of US Sailing’s Olympic Sailing Committee, says this team is “noticeable stronger than the team we brought to China in 2008.” However, that may not manifest itself in any more medals. We have a strong chance in three classes (Finn, Laser Radial, and Women’s Match Racing), and an outside chance in three others (Women’s 470, Star, 49er). If I had to get specific: Gold for Team Tunnicliffe. Bronze for Zach Railey. Fifth for Paige Railey. My wild card is the Women’s 470 team of Amanda Clark and Sarah Lihan. The big breeze doesn’t bode well for U.S. Star representative Mark Mendelblatt, who said yesterday that the P-Star is a better heavy air boat than the Folli he has chosen. and the first week of the event looks windy.

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SKANDIA SAIL FOR GOLD 2012

US Sailing Team 2012: Bob Willis

US Sailing Team 2012: Bob Willis

Bob Willis–Meet the Team

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