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:
West Coast Trials End With
Cheers for the Winners,
Tears for the Losers
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA (October 14, 2007) - It's
not supposed to be easy, winning a bid to the Olympic Games in any
discipline, but that makes it more satisfying for the winners, if
heartbreaking for the losers. So it was in Sunday's climax of the U.S.
Olympic & Paralympic Team Trials – Sailing on the West Coast.
While some winners won comfortably, the Stars and Tornados and---it seemed
for a few hours---the women's RS:X sailboards were settled by competitors
coming from behind on the last day and winning the last race. But well into
the evening the latter result was reversed on a protest that put everyone
through an emotional wringer, as if the competition wasn't tense enough.
Details below.
Star keelboat, California Yacht Club, Marina del Rey: John Dane III
and Austin Sperry: Attention, AARP---you have a new poster boy.
Fifty-seven-year-old John Dane III of Gulfport, Miss., sailing with his
son-in-law Austin Sperry, 29, as crew, won the biggest race of his life
Sunday to claim the U.S. Olympic berth for the Games' most venerable class.
They nosed out Rick Merriman and Phil Trinter by seconds in the only race
remaining. Their only lingering rivals among 19 boats, George Szabo/Andrew
Scott and Mark Mendelblatt/Magnus Liljedahl, finished sixth and seventh.
Winds were 8-12 knots but Santa Monica Bay offered more straightforward
sailing than it had most of the week. Dane and Sperry whooped and hugged
after crossing the line. "I'm glad it's over," Sperry said. "JD did a great
job, everything clicked, and we're going to the Olympics." They've been
sailing together for three years, since sailing on different boats in the
2004 Trials. Their key improvement going into the Trials was downwind speed,
following an intense nine days of concentration on that aspect working with
Robert Scheidt, a triple Olympic medalist in Laser and current Star world
champion. "We passed Merriman in the last 100 yards," Sperry said. "It was
pretty cool." ---Tom O'Conor reporting
Tornado multihull, San Diego Yacht Club / John Lovell and Charlie
Ogletree: Savannah, Sydney, Athens .. and Qingdao! John Lovell and
Charlie Ogletree's Tornado tour of Olympic sailing venues marches on after
they pulled off a comeback for the ages by winning the last four races to
outscore Robbie Daniel and Hunter Stunzi by one point---the first time in
the 16-race regatta that the latter didn't own at least a tie for first
place. Thus, Lovell and Ogletree, who turned 40 together Thursday, will try
to upgrade their 2004 silver medals to gold next August. In winds of 5 1/2
to 8 knots, they won Sunday's races by 59 and 71 seconds, after their
protest Saturday against Daniel/Stunzi and Norman and Gary Chu for team
racing against them was disallowed the night before. The competition got
feisty at times. "We’ve consistently come up trumps this week in our
spirited pre-start match racing against our younger opponents, but they have
displayed an uncanny ability in getting out of jail more times than we care
to remember," Ogletree wrote in their daily newsletter. Lovell said, "Robbie
and Hunter pushed us harder than we've ever been pushed in Trials
conditions. We just kept thinking every day, 'We're still not mathematically
eliminated. We can still win.' We finally got 'em in the last start when we
pushed them off on the committee boat." ---Mike Foster reporting
RS:X sailboard, Women, Alamitos Bay Yacht Club/US Sailing Center, Long
Beach, Calif. / Nancy Rios: After winning the previous six races to
reach the threshold of the 2008 Olympics, it appeared the diminutive Nancy
Rios had lost the bid by one point to a bigger, stronger Farrah Hall by
finishing fourth in the final race in 14-knot winds, as Hall swept the day
1-1. But Rios, inconsolable when she reached shore, requested redress over a
collision with third-place Monica Wilson after the start of the last race
that tore her sail. The jury agreed and dropped her four-point score to two,
putting her back in front of Hall, 28 points to 29. Oh, my! "I'm happy
[now]," Rios said. "My plan today was to get two seconds, and I was right
behind Farrah when I had the collision. If it was Farrah in this situation,
she also would have protested." Rios won seven of the 16 races to Hall's
six. Meantime, the technicality remains that the women's RS:X is the only
class in which the U.S. has failed to qualify as a country. The last chance
will be the RS:X Worlds at Auckland in January. "I'm going to the Worlds and
have all the confidence we'll qualify," Rios said. "No problem." ---Rick
Roberts reporting
49er skiff, Southwestern Yacht Club, San Diego / Tim Wadlow and Chris
Rast: "Go win some gold medals!" With that sendoff from the U.S. Navy,
Tim Wadlow, 33, and crew Chris Rast, 35, a native of Switzerland with dual
citizenship, won the U.S. Olympic berth by finishing second to Morgan Larson
and Pete Spaulding in the next-to-last race, sailed in bright sunshine in 7
knots of wind. For the third day of the 49er Trials, a Navy ship anchored
near the course to watch the action, then cheered the winners as they sailed
into the spectator fleet and capsized their boat to mingle with the fans and
swig some champagne. Wadlow and Spaulding finished fifth as teammates in the
2004 Olympics when Rast, then sailing for Switzerland, was their tuning
partner. They went their separate ways when Wadlow remained uncertain about
doing another campaign, then he and Rast started sailing together 18 months
ago. Their key: "You have to believe in yourselves," Wadlow said. "The
transition from skipper to crew is huge, but Chris was willing to do it, and
we found we worked together really well." Rast said, "It's not easy. I
bulked up from 145 to 158 pounds, [and] I believe I'm one of the best crews
right now." He plans to move to San Diego. "I met a pretty sweet girl here,"
he said. ---Margo Hemond and Jerelyn Biehl reporting
Finn dinghy, Newport Harbor Yacht Club, Balboa / Zach Railey: It may
have looked easy, running with a double-digit lead most of the week, but "it
was an extremely tough week," Zach Railey assured any skeptics. Railey, 23,
was among the youngest competitors in the Trials' largest fleet of 42 boats
that included veterans up to 72. "You have to respect the experience,"
Railey said. "You know that no one's giving up." Racing was delayed two
hours Sunday until 2 p.m. when the wind came in at 12 knots. As fourth-place
Bryan Boyd won both races, Railey finished second in the first race to
clinch the win without sailing the 16th race. "It was a true test," he said.
"I'm glad I did all the work beforehand. The first goal was to win the
Trials, but the ultimate goal is to be on the podium in China." ---Jeff
Johnson reporting
RS:X sailboard, Men, ABYC / Ben Barger: Barger, 26, made it hard on
himself when he spotted his rivals an early lead by sailing the wrong course
in the first of 16 races. Otherwise, he won eight races, including the last
four, to ruin double-Olympic medalist Mike Gebhardt's dream of sailing in
his fifth Games. Winds started light at 4-5 knots but built to 14, and
Barger handled it all. "It's awesome," he said. "For 10 years I've been
working toward this. I feel like I've grown a few gray hairs. The Trials can
be intense, and this was no different." ---Rick Roberts reporting
470 dinghy, Men and Women, / Stuart McNay/Graham Biehl and Amanda
Clark/Sarah Mergenthaler: They could have won the women's 470 Olympic
assignment by merely finishing the first race Sunday, but Amanda Clark, 25,
and Sarah Mergenthaler, 28, kept sailing like winners and clinched it in
style. Their victory means they'll join Stuart McNay, 26, and Graham Biehl,
21, who won the men's 470 Trials a day earlier, in Qingdao, China next
summer. The victory actually allowed Clark/Mergenthaler to finish on top of
the combined fleet standings after McNay/Biehl elected not to sail Sunday
and accepted two 14-point DNC (did not compete) scores, one of which they
were allowed to discard. Clark said, "We knew we just had to finish at least
11th [in the first race] so we were being conservative. Yeah, I know. We
were psyched. It's a dream come true. We've been working toward this
together since 2002. When I think about it I get teary-eyed." Mergenthaler
said, "You can try all you like and never get it right, but when you do it
feels really great. This is the start of a new phase. We're not just going
to the Olympics. We're going to China to bring home a medal." ---Rick
Roberts reporting
Final leaders:
STAR (19 boats; 16 races; 1 discard):
1. John Dane III/Austin Sperry (Gulfport, Miss.),
1-10-6-2-8-1-5-4-(12)-2-3-4-3-3-6-1, 59;
2. George Szabo (San Diego)/Andrew Scott (Annapolis),
2-1-(1)-1-7-3-4-9-6-2-1-1-8-6-4-3-6, 63;
3. Mark Mendelblatt (St. Petersburg, Fla.)/Magnus Liljedahl (Miami, Fla.),
3-3-1-8-1-3-6-2-5-10-4-(12)-2-9-5-7, 69.
49ER (13 boats; 24 races; 2 discards):
1. Tim Wadlow (Beverly, Mass.)/Chris Rast (San Diego),
1-2-1-1-3-1-4-3-3-1-1-1-1-1-3-3-3-2-3-2-2-(14/OCS)-2-(14/DNC), 44 points;
2. Dalton Bergan (Seattle, Wash.)/Zack Maxam (Costa Mesa, Calif.),
2-4-3-4-1-2-2-2-(14/OCS)-3-4-3-(4)-3-2-2-2-3-2-3-1-1-3-1, 53;
3. Morgan Larson (Capitola, Calif.)/Pete Spaulding (Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.),
(14/OCS)-1-2-2-9-(14/OCS)-1-1-1-2-2-2-5-2-1-1-1-1-1-1-4-14/OCS-1-3, 58.
TORNADO (6 boats; 16 races; 1 discard):
1. John Lovell (New Orleans, La.)/Charlie Ogletree (Kemah, Tex.),
2-1-1-2-2-1-1-2-(4)-3-1-2-1-1-1-1, 22 points;
2. Robbie Daniel (Clearwater, Fla.)/Hunter Stunzi (Charleston, S.C.),
1-(2)-2-1-1-2-2-1-1-1-2-1-2-2-2-2, 23;
3. Norman Chu/Gary Chu (Houston, Tex.), 5-(6)-4-6-3-3-6-5-6-2-3-3-4-3-4, 60.
FINN (42 boats; 16 races; 1 discard):
1. Zach Railey (Clearwater, Fla.), 1-2-12-1-1-1-1-1-3-8-3-1-2-2-(43/DNC),
40 points;
2. Geoffrey Ewenson (Annapolis), 2-3-(10)-4-3-2-2-4-3-1-3-7-4-1-4-3, 46;
3. Darrell Peck (Gresham, Ore.), 4-4-1-3-2-3-4-3-4-(6)-5-5-1-5-6-3-4, 52.
RS:X MEN (6 boats; 16 races; 1 discard):
1. Ben Barger (Tampa, Fla.), (8/RAF)-1-2-1-2-1-3-2-2-1-2-2-1-1-1-1, 23
points;
2. Mike Gebhardt (Ft. Pierce, Fla.), 2-(3)-1-2-1-2-1-3-1-2-3-3-2-2-3-3, 31;
3. Robert Willis (Chicago, Ill.), 1-2-5-3-(6)-3-2-1-4-4-1-1-6-3-2-2, 40.
RS:X WOMEN (7 boats; 16 races; 1 discard):
1. Nancy Rios (Miami, Fla.), 2-(4)-1-3-2-2-4-4-1-1-1-1-1-1-2-2, 28;
2. Farrah Hall (Annapolis, Md.), (4)-1-4-1-3-3-1-1-2-3-2-2-3-2-1-1, 29;
3. Monica Wilson (Newport, R.I.), 3-3-3-2-1-4-3-3-3-4-4-4-2-3-4-(5), 45.
470 COMBINED FLEET/Official scoring* (13 boats; 16 races; 1 discard):
1. Amanda Clark (Shelter Island, N.Y.)/Sarah Mergenthaler (New York,
N.Y.), 4-3-1-6-3-3-2-4-1-5-1-6-3-4-1-(14/DNC), 47 points;
2. Stuart McNay (Lincoln, Mass.)/Graham Biehl (San Diego),
2-2-2-2-1-2-4-1-6-4-2-1-6-1-(14/DNC)-14/DNC, 50;
3. Mikee Anderson-Mitterling (Coronado, Calif.)/David Hughes (San Diego),
5-1-6-3-4-4-1-5-5-(7)-5-4-5-3, 51.
*--For purpose of selecting Olympic representatives.
For complete information on the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Team Trials -
Sailing, please visit
www.ussailing.org/olympics/OlympicTrials.
Video from the event with commentary by Gary Jobson will be available daily
on the website of the NBC network at
www.NBCOlympics.com.
About the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Team Trials - Sailing
The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Team Trials - Sailing are managed by US
SAILING and hosted by several sailing organizations. Racing takes place
October 6 through October 14 with a rest day scheduled at each venue. The
highest eligible finisher in each class will be nominated by US SAILING to
the U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) to the 2008 U.S. Olympic or Paralympic
Team - Sailing. The events on the West Coast are hosted by Alamitos Bay
Yacht Club (470 Men & Women, RS:X Men & Women), California Yacht Club
(Star), Newport Harbor Yacht Club (Finn), San Diego Yacht Club (Tornado),
and Southwestern Yacht Club (49er). On the East Coast, the Rhode Island
Sailing Foundation in Newport (R.I.) is host to the Laser, Laser Radial,
2.4mR, SKUD-18, and Sonar events.
About US SAILING
The United States Sailing Association (US SAILING) is the national
governing body for sailing. 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.