Yesterday I wrote about USA’s No.2 470 Women moving into the lead of the World Championships, while the No.1 nominees who will be going to the Games for USA were lying in 6th.
After today’s racing in moderate breezes on Port Philip Bay, the gulf is much wider. Erin Maxwell and Isabelle Kinsolving now hold a commanding lead going into tomorrow’s Medal Race, while Amanda Clark and Sarah Mergenthaler had a poor outing, and have fallen to 11th, just three agonising points short of the cut for the Medal Race.
Herein lies the weakness of the one-regatta, winner-takes-all Olympic trials system still favoured by US Sailing, long since abandoned by other leading sailing nations such as GBR. How many reigning 470 World Champions have been left behind, not even able to represent their nation, let alone win a medal?
A lot, by my reckoning.
When I was campaigning 470s in the early 90s, I remember Jordi Calafat and Kika Sanchez winning the 1992 Worlds just a few months before the Games, and noting at the time that this would be the first time that a reigning 470 World Champion would actually be competing at the Games. For example, Kiwis David Barnes and Hamish Willcox won three Worlds in the space of four years, leading up to Long Beach 1984, only to finish fourth (I think) in the New Zealand trials. Four years later, reigning Pre-Olympic and World Champions Nigel Buckley and Pete Newlands could only manage fourth at the British trials in Weymouth. New Zealand didn’t come close to winning a medal in 1984, and Great Britain didn’t come close in 1988.
For reasons like these have some sailing nations moved to a more subjective, selection-based system.
At times like these, with Maxwell and Kinsolving riding high (they also won the Sail Melbourne regatta in the build-up to these Worlds), US Sailing must be ruing its decision to hold to the one-week trial system. It used to serve USA so well. After all, Team USA used to be the top sailing nation by a long, long way.
But not these days. US Sailing has long been playing catch-up, and when it enjoys the sort of success that it is in Melbourne, it needs to make the most of it.
Of course, this is all assuming that winning medals is what it’s all about. A subjective, selection-based system can end up becoming very political. It also tends to discourage the have-a-go heroes who get their old 470 out of the garage, hose it down, and go to the trials in the hope of sailing the week of their lives. You can’t do that in the Skandia Team GBR system, where you need to have been on the campaign trail for at least two or three years before the Games (as even reigning Olympic Champion Shirley Robertson has found to her cost).
So, if encouraging participation in Olympic classes – as opposed to winning medals – is what US Sailing is about, then it can rest easy. Otherwise, time for a trials rethink, perhaps.
Posted in 470 | Tags: Amanda Clark, Erin Maxwell, Isabelle Kinsolving, Sarah Mergenthaler
