SailJuice Blog

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?… Read the rest

The American 470 Women are coming on strong at the World Championships, with teams lying in 1st and 6th overall. Only trouble is, the ones who have qualified to represent USA at the Olympic Games are the ones lying in 6th, Amanda Clark and Sarah Mergenthaler.

Now this is no disaster, but to have a team at the top of the leaderboard – Erin Maxwell and Isabelle Kinsolving – who aren’t going to the Games, that must be a bitter-sweet moment for the people at US Sailing.

It would be a bitter-sweet moment too for the girls themselves, although they were putting a positive spin on things. “If we win the world titles we’ll be a whole lot less bummed about missing selection for the Olympics,” Kinsolving said. Maxwell added: “We didn’t want to stop sailing after such a… Read the rest