So, the US team was shut out at Weymouth. The slings and arrows of just what happened are just beginning.
The clock does not care.... Next challenge is Rio in 4 years and so there are lots of questions....
Do Woman's match and Men's keel sailors retire? or jump to mixed multihulls.
Could Paige and her brother pair up for a late run on mixed mulit... LOTS of olympic experience on that team.
Does Mark Mandelbrot take to Nacra 17 and learn to drive from a wire?
Do the Lovells see a target rich opportunity late in the game and jump in..... Lots of multi experienc on that possible team.
Does Robbie D find a partner and make a run.
Does Matt Struble convince his wife and ex teammate to take a shot
Can the sailors on the US Development team get the needed experience to be world class in 4 years.
Do the current Olympic Sailors suck the oxygen from the atomosphere and starve any of the new sailors to the circus?
Does anybody project a medal winner out of this pool?
Dean Brenner instituted the notion of
team
in the classic sense of the word and sought to get the sailors working in partnership.... with the best results at the end of the road in ISAF world events determining the US representative.... this was VERY different from the past .... US Sailors would find a training partner overseas and share information with those guys.... The level of cooperation extended at best to packing the container for trips overseas. A cage match at the trials would determine the US representative..
What's the best path to Rio...
Do the Lovells see a target rich opportunity late in the game and jump in..... Lots of multi experienc on that possible team.
Does Robbie D find a partner and make a run.
Does Matt Struble convince his wife and ex teammate to take a shot
can I stay out of the liquor bottle long enough to watch?
When's the boat landing.
Do Sarah and Matthew team up and leave all the old folks pinin' for the fjords?
From what I've heard there have been 12 or 13 deposits put down by US teams for Nacra 17s (number could be off). Of those teams, there is a pretty good mixture of both older established teams, and younger teams looking to jump into the game. The mixture is a very good thing, in my opinion, and gives the US the best chance of success in both the short and long term.
What will be interesting, is where the top contenders come from. I could certainly see a talented female skipper with international experience in the 470 or radial teaming up with an experienced cat crew and being seriously fast very quickly.
The other question, and perhaps the most important one, is what can we do to support those who are interested in making a run? At this point, the best way for a future campaigner to train is to sail big events in the F18 and F16 fleets. So, if we want to see success in Rio we need to make sure we are on the starting line and in the gym, pushing those guys as hard as possible every step of the way.
From watching Spithill and a few others on the AC series, they could come from pretty much anywhere. It's long known that a good sailor can make a plywood plank sail faster than the newest gizmo with a
regular
sailor driving... I guess the question then becomes
What do we have in place to identify those truly gifted sailors?
And by
Gifted
I mean talented, I don't mean the way I'm 'gifted' <img src="<>/smile.gif" alt="smile" title="smile" height="15" width="15" />
Watch out for the Glaser too.
Are they planning to campaign?
hmmmm....
wonder if the nz silver medal 49er pair
will re-pair with the nz gold medal women's 470 pair
but whoever sails
it's going to be good to get multis back in the games
though in nz they are saying their performance in the uk was better than beijing because the winds were stronger and more like
home
rio looks to be another light air venue...
not that the tornadoes in beijing suffered from light air
From watching Spithill and a few others on the AC series, they could come from pretty much anywhere. It's long known that a good sailor can make a plywood plank sail faster than the newest gizmo with a
regular
sailor driving... I guess the question then becomes
What do we have in place to identify those truly gifted sailors?
And by
Gifted
I mean talented, I don't mean the way I'm 'gifted' <img src="<>/smile.gif" alt="smile" title="smile" height="15" width="15" />
While there is some talent involved, it's 90% about training and TOTW.
Ok, I googled TOTW and found these:
TOTW Taste of the Wild
TotW Tales of the World (game)
TOTW Topic of the Week
TOTW Top of the World
TOTW Temple of Three Winds (Anarchy Online Mmorpg location)
TOTW Twist of the Wrist (motorcycles)
TOTW Theory on the Web (music study)
TOTW Treasures of the Web
TOTW Take Over the World
TOTW Tune of the Week (radio shows)
TOTW Thoughts of the Week
TOTW Trance Around the World (radio show)
TOTW Tutorial of the Week
TOTW Team of the Week
None of which seemed appropriate (except Twist Of The Wrist?). What's TOTW?
Time
On
The
Water
Ti&s
of
the
week