Sports

Local Olympian describes sailing trials

Courtesy Team GO SAIL | Sarah Lihan, left, and Amanda Clark in Australia after winning a place on the U.S. Olympic sailing team on December 17.

Shelter Island’s Olympic sailor Amanda Clark and her crew Sarah Lihan of Ft. Lauderdale credit their coach for helping them come back from a terrible day at the World Championships in Perth, Australia last month and beating their American competitors for a place on the 2012 U.S. Olympic sailing team.

“Though we built a significant lead over the first two days,” Ms. Clark and Ms. Lihan write in their Team GO SAIL blog posting from December 22, “a disastrous 33-27 scorecard on day three left us deep in the hole with only four races left to regain our advantage. Here we owe massive credit to our coach, Zachary Leonard, for screwing our heads back on when we were in danger of losing it all. We came back after the lay day with all guns blazing …”

Ms. Clark, 29, who has returned to Shelter Island for a break before beginning her training for the summer Olympics in Weymouth, England, is a 2008 Olympic veteran and was an alternate on the 2004 Olympic team.

Because of busy schedules over the holidays, a follow-up interview with Ms. Clark could not be arranged in time for this issue of the Reporter, the first since her success in Perth made news just before Christmas. But her team blog offers some details about her experience at the International Sailing Federation’s World Championship regatta, in which she and Ms. Lihan competed in the Women’s 470 category in 10 Olympic trial races plus a medal race between December 12 and 18.

The post can be read in full at blog.teamgosail.org. Excerpts from the post follow:

“We went into the Worlds with one goal in mind: to win the trials,” the Olympic duo write. “To achieve this, we had to reverse the points that we had given to our American competition, Erin Maxwell and Isabelle Kinsolving-Farrar, at the first half of the trials, which was the Sail for Gold regatta in Weymouth last June. There, they placed 8th and we finished 11th, thus here in Australia we needed to put two boats or more between us in order to seal our Olympic bid (with the Australian event being the tie breaker). Though they had beaten us at the first half of the Trials, we had finished ahead of them at every regatta since, leaving us confident that though it would be a close race, we were more than capable of reaching our goal …

“It’s only been 48 hours since we sealed the deal, and the time has been a whirlwind of container loading and interviews and packing ourselves up to head back to America. It’s a dream come true for Amanda, who can now marvel over the title of ‘two-time Olympian’ and for Sarah, who has qualified to compete in her first Games only nine months after she first stepped in a 470.

We owe so much to our event coach Zack Leonard as well as Udi Gal and US Sailing Team AlphaGraphics 470 Men’s coach Romain Bounnaud for all their help over the last few months’ training. We wouldn’t be where we are now without the backing of the US Sailing Team AlphaGraphics and its supporting sponsors …

“Together we form a powerful combination, but we are nothing without the incredible network of supporters that we have from the Shelter Island Yacht Club, the New York Yacht Club, The Sailing Foundation of New York, The Clever Pig Sailing Team and many more. It will be your enthusiasm and belief that will bring us to the podium next August — we are nothing without you …

“If you are interested in making a donation, please visit our website teamgosail.org for a simple PayPal checkout, or if you prefer to mail a check to the Team GO SAIL Foundation, please send it to Amanda Clark, P. O. Box 373, Shelter Island, NY 11964.”