Katie McDowell comes from a large extended family – she has seven siblings – all of whom have sailed at one time or another.  She was about nine years old when she first learned that sailing was in the Olympics and decided that she was going to go.  “I just never stopped dreaming about it.” 

At age 10 she followed brother Chris’s footsteps in taking sailing lessons at Barrington Yacht Club.  “My brother was always paving new ground for me, whether he knew it or not.  If it was racing in high school or going to Europe for world championships, he made it a lot easier for me to convince my parents that I should be doing the same.”  Katie sailed for Moses Brown and led them to the high school nationals three times before entering Tufts University.  She racked up ICSA Women’s All-American honors three times while at Tufts, before transferring to Brown University, where she was a Women’s All-American twice.  She graduated from Brown in 1998 and moved to New York City to take a position at National Geographic Adventure Magazine.

She teamed with Isabelle Kinsolving in 2001 to pursue her Olympic dreams, and when Isabelle graduated from Yale in 2002 Katie left her job to devote more time to training and competing.  Together they have been ranked on the US Sailing Team for the last four years.  They were favored to win the Trials, and did just that.

 Just the Facts: