FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Cynthia Goss (East Coast) 203-430-4145
Rich Roberts (West Coast) 310-835-2526 / cell 310-766-6547
West Coast report: U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Team Trials – Sailing
470 dinghy, Men, Alamitos Bay Yacht Club/US Sailing Center, Long
Beach, Calif. / McNay and Biehl: Stuart McNay and Graham Biehl posted a
pair of subtle second-place finishes to seize the first-day lead over the
favored Mikee Anderson-Mitterling and Dave Hughes (5-1), who had to claw
their way back from a poor beginning in the opening race. McNay and Biehl
pushed Keith David and crew Brad Rodi to a 15-second win in the first race
and followed Anderson-Mitterling and Hughes by a much larger margin in the
second. Earlier, the latter were caught on the wrong side of a 30-degree
shift in the first race that started at noon in a 6-knot southerly. "We were
a bit conservative," Anderson-Mitterling said. "We wanted the pin [start]
and got the pin, but then there was a huge righty." By the time the second
race started the wind had settled into a southwesterly sea breeze of 13
knots. They led at every mark and won by half the last leg of the
Olympic-style trapezoid course. ---Rick Roberts reporting
470 dinghy, Women, ABYC/USSC / Clark and Mergenthaler: There was
little to choose among Amanda Clark and Sarah Mergenthaler and their male
peers Saturday. With the five women's teams competing alongside eight men's
entries in the same fleet, the New York women finished fourth and third
overall and first twice among their gender to take the early lead in their
series. They stand third overall among the 13 boats.
RS:X sailboard, Men, ABYC / Willis: Robert Willis, 20, was barely
walking when Mike Gebhardt sailed in his first of four Olympics in 1988.
Now, momentarily and just barely, he stands between Gebhardt and a fifth
Olympics with finishes of 1-2 to Gebhardt's 2-3 on opening day. Another of
the favorites, Ben Barger, stands fourth after a retired-after-finished
(RAF) in the first race before be bounced back to win the second. With
light, shifty wind prevailing on the course off the Seal Beach Pier, PRO
Mark Townsend held the small fleet on shore to start two hours late at 2
p.m., expecting a double-digit southwesterly sea breeze to fill in. Good
call. Willis caught Gebhardt on the second beat and covered the rest of the
way, and in the second race, Willis said, "I was just trying go keep Gebi
behind me," as Barger recovered with a victory. Gebhardt, 41, was Willis'
coach for awhile "We're still friends," Willis said, "but it's good to be in
front of him right now." –-Rick Roberts reporting
RS:X sailboard, Women, ABYC / Kremer: There's a lot at stake, but for
Lisa Kremer the first day of the Trials was also "a lot of fun," she said
after grabbing the early lead with a 1-2 performance. "When the wind picked
up I was able to plane," she said. It's the first Olympic campaign for the
19-year-old from Worthington, Minn.
49er skiff, Southwestern Yacht Club, San Diego / Wadlow and Rast:
After finishing a hard 2004 Olympic campaign in fifth place at Athens, Tim
Wadlow said, "I was pretty burnt out and didn’t want to see a 49er for
awhile." So his crew Pete Spaulding joined Morgan Larson's new campaign.
Then 18 months ago a refreshed Wadlow cranked up another campaign with Chris
Rast as crew. Saturday they opened the Trials with 1-2-1 finishes to take
the early lead over Dalton Bergan and Zack Maxam (2-4-3). Larson and
Spaulding were in fifth after starting early in the first race before
blazing back with a 1-2. They'll discard their opening mis-step later. Winds
were 11-15 knots with a large San Diego swell and chop on Coronado Roads.
"We're one of the lightest 49ers internationally at 145 kilos (319 pounds),"
Wadlow said. "A lot of the guys lost weight because they thought it would be
light wind here. We saw in the practice days that when the wind was up we
were a bit stronger." ---Margo Hemond reporting
Finn dinghy, Newport Harbor Yacht Club, Balboa / Zach Railey: It's
the largest fleet in the Trials with 42 boats and veteran campaigners as old
as 72, but Zach Railey, 23, led the way with a 1-2 in the first two races.
With winds of 8 knots building to 14 through the afternoon, Railey held off
Geoff Ewenson (2-3), 37, by three points. Andrew Pimental, 49, won the
second race to hold a third-place tie.
Star keelboat, California Yacht Club, Marina del Rey / Mendelblatt and
Liljedahl: From shifty and light to fresh double digits, Santa Monica
Bay threw the whole mix at some of America's best sailors, who couldn't get
enough. Not knowing when they might see such conditions again, the race
committee ran an extra third race, which Mark Mendelblatt and crew Magnus
Liljedahl (3-3-1) won to jump into a solid seven-point lead. With only the
scheduled two races, George Szabo and crew Andrew Scott would have been on
top with 2-1 finishes, but they slipped to 11th in the third. "It was a good
start for us," Mendelblatt said, "but only a start. We got our share of
breaks. It's easy to fall into pressure holes here. We tried to stay in the
middle, but you can get hurt anyplace." Szabo and Scott are second and Mark
Reynolds and Hal Haenel---there's a pair of familiar names---are third.
---Tom O'Conor reporting
Tornado catamaran, San Diego Yacht Club / Daniel/Stunzi and Lovell/Ogletree:
If anyone was going to play spoilers for John Lovell and Charlie
Ogletree's to reach their fourth Olympics, it figured to be Robbie Daniel
and crew Hunter Stunzi. They swapped firsts and seconds to set the stage for
a week-long scenario of high-performance sailing. "We're happy with the
day," said Daniel, who spoke of leads changing on subtle shifts in winds
building to 18 knots on Coronado Roads by day's end, of covering Lovell/Ogletree
with a dozen matching jibes to the finish of the first race, and of Lovell/Ogletree
"attacking before the start" of the second race. "They’re a lot faster when
the wind comes up," Daniel said. "We didn't change gears for it." ---Mike
Foster and Jared Wohlgemuth reporting
The leaders:
470 Men (8 boats; 2 of 16 races)
1. Stuart McNay (Lincoln, Mass.)/Graham Biehl (San Diego), 2-2, 4 points
2. Mikee Anderson-Mitterling (Coronado, Calif.)/David Hughes (San Diego),
5-1, 6
3. Charles Modica (Hobe Sound, Fla.)/Han Jensen (Duxbury, Mass.), 3-5, 8
470 Women (5 boats; 2 of 16 races)
1. Amanda Clark (Shelter Island, N.Y.)/Sarah Mergenthaler (New York, N.Y.),
1-1, 2 points
2. tie between Molly Carapiet (Belvedere, Calif.)/Molly O'Bryan (San Diego),
2-3, and
2. Erin Maxwell (Norwalk, Conn.)/Isabelle
Kinsolving (New York, N.Y.), 3-2, 5.
RS:X Men (6 boats):
1. Robert Willis (Chicago, Ill.), 1-2, 3 points
2. Ben Barger (Tampa, Fla.); 2. Mike Gebhardt (Ft. Pierce, Fla.), 2-3, 5
3. Jim Sobeck (East Quoge, N.Y.), 3-4, 7
RS:X Women (7 boats)
1. Lisa Kremer (Worthington, Minn.), 1-2, 3 points
2. Farrah Hall (Annapolis, Md.), 4-1, 5
3. Nancy Rios (Miami, Fla.), 2-4, 6.
49er (13 boats; 3 of 24 races)
1. Tim Wadlow (Beverly, Mass.)/Chris Rast (San Diego), 1-2-1, 4 points
2. Dalton Bergan (Seattle, Wash.)/Zack Maxam (Costa Mesa, Calif.), 2-4-3, 9
3. John Heineken (Larkspur, Calif.)/Matt Noble (Pt. Richmond, Calif.),
4-5-4, 13.
Finn (42 boats)
1. Zach Railey (Clearwater, Fla.), 1-2, 3 points
2. Geoffrey Ewenson (Annapolis), 2-3, 5
3. tie among Andrew Pimental (Portsmouth, R.I.), 7-1
3. Bryan Boyd (Annapolis), 3-5, and
3. Darrell Peck (Gresham, Ore.), 4-4, 8.
Star (19 boats)
1. Mark Mendelblatt (St. Petersburg, Fla.)/Magnus Liljedahl (Miami, Fla.),
3-3-1, 7 points
2. George Szabo (San Diego)/Andrew Scott (Annapolis), 2-1-11, 14
3. Mark Reynolds (San Diego)/Hal Haenel (Los Angeles), 12-2-2, 16
Tornado (6 boats)
1. Tie between Robbie Daniel (Clearwater, Fla.)/Hunter Stunzi (Charleston,
S.C.), 1-2, and
1. John Lovell (New Orleans, La.)/Charlie Ogletree
(Kemah, Tex.), 2-1, 3 points;
3. Colin Merrick (Portsmouth, R.I.)/John Sampson (Portsmouth, R.I.), 4-3, 7.
To follow the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Team Trials – Sailing, visit the
event website at
www.ussailing.org/olympics/OlympicTrials.
Daily reports from the East and West coasts, results and photos will be
posted during the event. Video from the event with commentary by Gary Jobson
will be available daily on the website of the NBC network at
www.NBCOlympics.com.
The Beijing 2008 Olympic Games will take place August 8–24; the Paralympic
Games take place September 6–17, 2008. Both the Olympic and Paralympic
regattas will be held in Qingdao, China, a coastal city located 430 miles
east of Beijing.
About US SAILING
The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Team Trials – Sailing are managed by US
SAILING, national governing body for the sport. Founded in 1897 and
headquartered in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, the organization provides
leadership for the sport of sailing in the United States. US SAILING offers
training and education programs for instructors and race officials, supports
a wide range of sailing organizations and communities, issues offshore
rating certificates, and provides administration and oversight of
competitive sailing across the country, including National Championships and
the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Sailing Teams. For more information, please
visit www.ussailing.org.