{"id":67479,"date":"2017-04-17T18:36:03","date_gmt":"2017-04-17T22:36:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/?p=67479"},"modified":"2023-05-06T22:07:03","modified_gmt":"2023-05-07T02:07:03","slug":"olympic-sailing-reboot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/racing\/olympic-sailing-reboot\/","title":{"rendered":"Olympic Sailing Reboot"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\"olympic <\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n
\n Encouraging \u00adinteraction between all levels of sailors, 2008 Laser Radial gold medalist Anna \u00adTunnicliffe is a mainstay of the ODP program. Also a professional CrossFit athlete, \u00adTunnicliffe leads rigorous morning workouts. \u00ad<\/span>\n Jen Edney<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\t <\/figcaption>\n <\/section>\n\t\t\n\n\n\n

I t\u2019s a sunny, light-breeze afternoon with gentle rolling swells, we\u2019re a few miles off Miami, and Wiley Rogers and crew Jack Parkin, two of the country\u2019s most promising young dinghy sailors, are working with Olympic coach Dave Ullman. They\u2019re fresh off a crushing win in 420s at the Youth World championship and now, at the ripe ages of 17 and 18, respectively, they\u2019re ratcheting up to the next level \u2014 a 470 campaign that, with wide-eyed, youthful optimism, might lead to Tokyo in 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

The afternoon eventually winds down, and the boys lower their sails in preparation for the tow back to the Miami Yacht Club, host for the first US Sailing Team camp of the new quad. As they\u2019re rolling sails, another 470 materializes out of the haze. It\u2019s Rio Olympians Stu McNay and Dave Hughes, already training for 2020, and they\u2019re flying an Olympic spinnaker emblazoned with a large American flag. Rogers stands in the cockpit, tiller in one hand and, with the other, points to the \u00adOlympic \u00adspinnaker, now about a quarter-mile away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cHey, we need one like that!\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Intentional or not, his words are a stealthy, symbolic shot across the bow of the veteran Olympians. A grin appears from under Ullman\u2019s signature white mustache.\n\u201cYou\u2019ll get yours,\u201d he replies, \u201csomeday.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

For 85 sailors at the Miami YC, preparations for \u201csomeday\u201d are happening here and now \u2014 the first day of the new year, and just in case anyone has forgotten that detail, reminders still swing in the breeze under the patio awning, remnants of the club\u2019s New Year\u2019s Eve party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

There have been team camps in the past, but this one is different \u2014 a new era, if you will. It includes all the current Olympic-class boats, plus kiteboards. It embraces Olympic veterans as well as past and present Olympic hopefuls. And it includes a select, invitation-only group of talented youth sailors, including Rogers and Parkin, some of whom are still in high school, who have been invited to play with the big kids, so to speak. They\u2019re members of the U.S. Youth Worlds Team as well as participants in the Olympic Development Program, which began hosting camps in 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

\n\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\"olympic <\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n
\n Four-time ICSA Women\u2019s Singlehanded national champion Erika Reineke sails a practice race at the US Sailing Team\u2019s Olympic Development camp in Miami.<\/span>\n Jen Edney<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\t <\/figcaption>\n <\/section>\n\t\t\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the perfect balance of old guard and new blood,\u201d says Leandro Spina, Development Director of the U.S. team. \u201cThis is when our vision comes together. We develop young talent in youth classes, and then we guide them through the first steps into an Olympic class. This is the very first camp, since we\u2019ve had ODP in place, where we close that loop.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

What exactly is ODP? Unlike previous youth programs, there is no roster. In fact, it\u2019s an \u00adeducational system rather than a team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe idea,\u201d says the team\u2019s Olympic communications manager, Will Ricketson, \u201cis to connect top youth sailors with world-class coaching.\u201d And because it\u2019s a system rather than a team, there is \u201ca free flow of kids in and out of ODP, based on how they race at key evaluation events, progress in their knowledge base, and their response to coaching.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

According to Spina, Mac Agnese, age 22, r\u00adepresents ODP bringing in the next generation of sailors. As a youth, Agnese went through now-defunct U18 and Development teams. Then he got involved in ODP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is the biggest concentration of really good, young talent I\u2019ve experienced,\u201d says Agnese, who has won two medals in the ISAF youth worlds in two different classes and has his sights set on the Olympics in the 49er. He\u2019s sold on the program.\n\u201cAll the resources and awesome coaching are provided,\u201d says Agnese. \u201cAnd you get to sail with a lot of really good sailors from around the country in a lot of different boats.\u201d Agnese was also a college sailor and points out that while college sailing is great, \u201cat the end of the day, you\u2019re sailing FJs and 420s. Now, I\u2019m sailing 49ers and cats.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

There are two other significant pieces to Spina\u2019s loop to be completed. One is location. \u201cFrom the Miami YC, we have the ocean, we have the bay, and we have what we call the middle racecourse,\u201d says Spina. \u201cOn any given day, we can get flat water, chop, swell, shifty winds, steady winds, current and no current. And when you go out into the ocean and go south of the cut, you\u2019ll get a different sea state than if you went north.\u201d In other words, it provides training in virtually every condition an athlete might encounter in any venue around the world. The accommodating Miami YC, which basically turns the keys over to the team for the week, delivers a perfect training incubator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

The other piece is the 20 elite coaches who sign up to work at this camp. US Sailing\u2019s outgoing high-performance director Charlie McKee, himself a two-time Olympic medalist, assembled the group. \u201cWe have a bunch of people who believe enough in what we are doing,\u201d says McKee, \u201cthat they really want to be involved.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe coaches here have seen everything before,\u201d says Radial sailor Christina Sakellaris, a high school senior. \u201cAnything that happens to us on the racecourse, mentally or fitness-wise, they\u2019ve seen it; they know how to fix it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

She points out that working with a number of coaches is also an advantage. \u201cThis was only the second time I met Luther [Carpenter], and the way he was describing the middle zone today in the debrief really clicked for me. I know he coached Anna [Tunnicliffe] at the \u00adOlympics, and it\u2019s cool because Anna\u2019s coached me before, so now I know where she got some of the things she taught me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

\n\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\"olympic <\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n
\n While there are few American 49erFX sailors, the fleet in Miami was strong and included the 2016 Olympians Paris Henken and Helena Scutt, as well as a number of aspirants.<\/span>\n Jen Edney<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\t <\/figcaption>\n <\/section>\n\t\t\n\n\n\n

How the coaches approach the sailors, especially the younger ones, is what stands out most. Senior Olympic coach Carpenter, who has helped teams win five medals in four different classes, says: \u201cOur approach to coaching these younger, talented kids is that we\u2019re not coaching down to them. We\u2019re coaching at the highest levels and hoping they\u2019re going to be sponges, taking it all in.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Stick around for the post-race debriefings, and you\u2019ll see Carpenter\u2019s hope materialize. On the Miami YC patio and in adjacent rooms, the sponges soak feverishly. At one table, Rulo Borojovich from Argentina, who coached Anna Tunnicliffe to a gold medal in 2008, is meeting with the Laser Radial sailors. Tunnicliffe, back in the Radial after a seven-year hiatus, is seated next to him. One table over, Ullman, who coached the U.S. women\u2019s 470 team in \u00adRio, huddles with Rogers and Parkin around a computer, looking at sail shapes. Nearby, Italian Peitro Sibello, a two-time Olympian helm in the 49er class, is reviewing 49er material, taking notes for a later meeting. In a room off the patio, Ed Baird, a top pro sailor and the last U.S. competitor to win the Laser Worlds long ago, debriefs the Laser full-rig sailors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

The most intensely focused group is found at the FX team table. Willie McBride, who coached Paris Henken and Helena Scutt, U.S. Olympic representatives in Rio, is working with the eight young women, including Henken and Scutt. They assembled before everyone else, and once other groups have broken up for the day, they\u2019re still at it. Listen in, and you\u2019ll hear McBride eventually wrap up the session \u2014 with homework. \u201cI want you to think about and write down everything you think goes into a good tack,\u201d he says. \u201cWeight placement, mechanics, anything else that makes it work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

The group quickly scribbles down the assignment before finally closing their notebooks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

T here\u2019s also a playfulness that \u00adoccasionally interrupts the camp\u2019s serious tone. On Wednesday morning, the fleet is launching, and the two women\u2019s 470 teams are already on the water. Rogers and Parkin\u2019s boat is still on the dolly, jib up, as they fuss with final details.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Olympian Annie Haeger, whom Ullman coached in the last quad, shows up to drop off a mainsail for the boys. They were her training partners before the Games. She yells over to them, \u201cHey, the other boats are already \u00adheading out. Why aren\u2019t you out there?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Parkin responds, \u201cWe\u2019re on Ullman time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

To which Haeger quickly retorts: \u201cUllman time means on time. Get out there!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Each day starts with Tunnicliffe leading a CrossFit workout. The first day, they do a \u00adhalf-hour warm-up of sprints and stretches, and then wrap it up with 100 burpees. It\u2019s obvious who participated by the dirt stains on their T-shirts. A couple of the guys stumble back to the yacht club and plunge into the pool. Most everyone drops into a chair somewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

The tone is set.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

\n\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\"olympic <\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n
\n While kiteboarding is not yet in the Olympic Games, the US Sailing Team hedged its bets for Tokyo by including a fleet in the camp.<\/span>\n Jen Edney<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\t <\/figcaption>\n <\/section>\n\t\t\n\n\n\n

From here, it\u2019s off to a tent erected to one side of the Miami YC building. Inside is a basic classroom configuration \u2014 whiteboard and flat-screen TV at one end, American flag hanging in the corner, and a sea of plastic chairs. The tent barely holds the participants, coaches and dozen or so other people involved in the program. After the first day, the tent begins filling well before the start time; it\u2019s clear that being up front \u2014 here as well as on the starting line \u2014 has its advantages. Carpenter emcees the sessions, which focus on general information valuable to anyone \u2014 regardless of which class they sail \u2014 as well as touching on some high points from the previous day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Next, participants meet in their specific classes. I join Ed Baird, Brett Davis and Rulo Borojovich as they meet with the Laser and Laser Radial sailors. The first day begins with introductions, and the game seems to be who can be the most modest about their achievements, perhaps because everyone realizes the caliber of athletes and coaches surrounding them. Even Baird begins by saying that he \u201cdid pretty well in the Laser a while back.\u201d\nWhen participant Chris Barnard says, \u201cI haven\u2019t been in the boat in a bit…,\u201d Baird finishes his sentence by saying, \u201c…since you won the \u00adcollegiate singlehanded nationals.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

And it goes on from there. At one point, Baird notices only a few people are taking notes \u2014 mostly the Radial girls \u2014 and he quickly admonishes the group. \u201cYou\u2019ve gotta write this stuff down. You\u2019re not gonna remember it all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

For younger sailors, having Olympians as role models is a camp highlight. Sakellaris says: \u201cAs a youth sailor, I idolized the people I\u2019m now getting to sail against, which is really awesome. But, it also changed my perspective. You can get down about your performance sometimes; then you meet someone who has done the Olympics and didn\u2019t perform well, or someone who almost qualified. You understand that you\u2019re not supposed to succeed every day. It\u2019s supposed to be difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Afternoons are spent on the water, and there, lessons from the veterans were highly focused. \u201cIt\u2019s really cool because if you aren\u2019t sure what to do, just look over, and there\u2019s the Olympic gold medalist [Anna Tunnicliffe], and you can check out what she\u2019s doing,\u201d says Sakellaris. \u201cAt one point, I was sailing downwind near her, and she yelled over to me: \u2018Hey, don\u2019t do that! Do this instead!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

According to coach Mike Ingham, the old path for U.S. Olympic sailors was get good, in large part by competing in Europe, and then get funding. \u201cOur new approach is a move away from the heavy emphasis on going to Europe,\u201d he says, \u201cwhich becomes very expensive.\u201d It\u2019s also clear to Ingham that \u201cthis far out, we don\u2019t know who the superstars, the top sailors, are going to be. It\u2019s a more collaborative approach. The seasoned people are here to set the bar.\u201d\nMcKee agrees. \u201cWe don\u2019t believe in people just going off and doing their own thing. We believe in teamwork and supporting each other.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

One of the biggest challenges for younger sailors is striking a balance between big-time commitments to sailing and pressures to excel at school and establish careers. Parkin acknowledges there are going to be complications. \u201cI think US Sailing is trying to focus on how to handle the integration of college sailing and Olympic sailing,\u201d he says. \u201cWiley and I are just going to see how it goes as we go along.\u201d\nTokyo \u2014 and 2024, wherever it may be \u2014 is a long way away, but they\u2019re on the right path.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

U.S. Olympic sailing coaches roll out a collaborative approach to training as the team looks forward to the Tokyo Olympics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18504,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"BS_author_type":"BS_author_is_guest","BS_guest_author_name":"Dave Powlison","BS_guest_author_url":"","hydra_display_date":"20170417","hydra_display_updated":false,"_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":"159","_yoast_wpseo_metadesc":"U.S. Olympic sailing coaches roll out a collaborative approach to training as the team looks forward to the Tokyo Olympics.","_yoast_wpseo_title":"Olympic Sailing Reboot %%sep%% %%sitename%%","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","arc_story_id":"PDDB52ITALMT65TBHV6K7URX7I","arc_website_url":"olympic-sailing-reboot\/","custom_permalink":"","arc_subtype":"right-sidebar","arc_exclude_from_feeds":false,"sponsored":false,"sponsored_label":"Sponsored Content","sponsored_display_label":false,"sponsored_image":0,"post_right_rail":true,"post_right_rail_ad_1":true,"post_right_rail_ad_2":true,"post_right_rail_ad_3":false,"post_right_rail_ad_4":false,"post_right_rail_recirc":true,"fixed_anchor_ad":true,"post_top_ad":true,"post_off_ramp":true,"post_taboola":false,"labels":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[159],"tags":[186,178,627,223],"class_list":["post-67479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-racing","tag-olympic-sailing","tag-sailboat-racing","tag-us-sailing","tag-us-sailing-team"],"acf":[],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}