Do or die for Clark’s Olympic quest: Shelter Island sailor faces tough competition in Perth

It’s do or die in coming days for Amanda Clark and her quest to reach the Olympics for a second time.

Shelter Island’s 2008 Olympic sailor and her crew Sarah Lihan of Fort Lauderdale have been in Perth, Australia this month practicing and preparing for their last-ditch effort to come from behind and win a berth on the 2012 American Olympic sailing team.

The duo will be competing in the two-person dinghy 470 category against another US Sailing Team AlphaGraphics duo, Erin Maxwell of Wilton, Connecticut and Isabelle Kinsolving Farrar of Fishers Island and New York City.

The showdown will come in the second and final Olympic trial regatta of the year, the International Sailing Federation (ISAF) Sailing World Championships, which is set to start Saturday, December 3 and continue through December 18 in Perth.

Shelter Island’s hometown favorite stands in second place behind Maxwell-Kinsolving Farrar following the Skandia Sail for Gold Olympic trial in England in June. The Clark-Lihan team finished in 11th place overall and behind Maxwell-Kinsolving Farrar in the women’s 470 category. Maxwell-Kinsolving Farrar were in eighth place overall.

At the time, Ms. Clark said she and Ms. Lihan had done well, sailing for the first time together in an Olympic trial, and were in an ideal position to make their move in Perth. “We’re definitely in this,” Ms. Clark said in a phone interview after the regatta. “We’re exactly where we want to be.”

“Our focus has been learning how to sail together,” Ms. Clark said, “and feel comfortable on the race course but not go so far we’d put too much at risk.” It was important “not to be eliminated,” she said. “I’m really happy with the outcome.”

In Australia earlier this month, they won a bronze medal in a non-Olympic event: the first stop on the International Sailing Federation’s 2011-12 Sailing World Cup series in Melbourne, Australia. Another US Sailing Team AlphaGraphics duo took gold in the men’s 470: Stuart McNay of Boston and Graham Biehl of San Diego.

Ms. Clark and her crew went to Australia after a summer off from the Olympic trial process, including a stay on Shelter Island followed by practice on Buzzards Bay this fall.

Their competitors are looking tough. The Sail-World.com website reports Maxwell and Kinsolving Farrar were in second place in the ISAF Women 470 rankings as of October and “are in the passing lane and on the road to the Olympics.”

The site reports that Maxwell and Kinsolving Farrar “have been in the fast lane for over five years. Their team formed in the summer of 2006. Erin and Isabelle have progressed through hardship in 2007, when they missed the 2008 U.S. Womens’ Olympic slot by one position, to taking the 2008 World Championships a few months later.”

The site reports that “their speed on the water is paralleled by busy personal lives … They’ve built up to their top international ranking while Erin was working full-time as a commodities broker and Isabelle was going to law school full-time.”

Ms. Clark joined forces with Sarah Lihan early this year after her previous crew of nine years, Sarah Chin, ended her participation in the campaign. Ms. Clark said then she was sad to see her longtime crew go after countless regattas that led the team to the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. “She knew how much effort she would need to put in to make it to the Olympics” again, Ms. Clark said, “and knew she just didn’t quite have the motivation to do it.”

Clark called Jeff Bresnahan, her coach at Connecticut College and the program director at the Shelter Island Junior Yacht Club. “We started brainstorming about different possibilities,” she said. After searching far and wide, Clark held a week of tryouts and eventually decided on Lihan on February 21.

Lihan is an accomplished single-handed Laser Radial sailor, having earned All-American honors her senior year skippering at Yale in 2009-2010, first place in the Inter-Collegiate Sailing Association’s Women’s National Championship in 2009 and two Olympic trials under her belt.

It all comes down to one regatta for the Clark-Lihan team and all other US Sailing Team AlphaGraphics athletes looking to clinch a U.S. Olympic team spot. More than 5,000 officials, 1,200 sailors and tens of thousands of spectators are expected to visit Australia for the two-week regatta.

“All of the training and preparation done by US Sailing Team AlphaGraphics athletes over the past three and a half years will come together in Perth,” said Olympic Sailing Committee Chairman Dean Brenner. “The Olympic Sailing Committee structured the U.S. Olympic team selection process to align with our primary mission of fielding a team that gives the U.S. the best possible chances of success at the Games. And international competition at the highest level is what will best prepare America’s athletes for the Olympic Games.”

Amanda Clark was born in 1982 and grew up on Shelter Island. She started sailing Optimist dinghies at the Shelter Island Yacht Club at age 5 and joined the junior program at age 7. At age 15, she started racing in Olympic class sailboats. With the help of her community and the Shelter Island Yacht Club, she and her family began to raise the funds necessary to help her compete on the Olympic level.

For more information, go to:
www.teamgosail.org.