The climb back for U.S. Olympic Sailing -Part Two
by David Schmidt, Sail-World USA Editor on 13 Feb 2016
Paris Henken and Helena Scutt, 49erFX, sailing in Palma Will Ricketson / US Sailing Team
http://home.ussailing.org/
Historically, the United States has always been a strong contender in the sport of sailing. This arguably culminated with the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, where the U.S. team collected three Gold medals and four Silver medals. While this was a watershed moment in the history of sailing in the U.S., it also unleashed a monster. Namely, other countries seriously upped their focus on high-level coaching, forever changing the face of Olympic sailing.
Flash forward to the 2012 London Olympics and the U.S. team suffered a trouncing that saw the team sail home empty-handed, marking the first time since the 1936 Berlin Olympics that the U.S. team was shut out of all sailing medal ceremonies. Since then, however, the U.S.-flagged team has retooled their efforts, specifically within the realms of higher-level coaching, fundraising and a dedicated youth-talent development pipeline.
Now, less than six months before the start of the 2016 Rio Olympics-and less than three weeks after the U.S. team realized promising results at World Sailing’s Sailing World Cup Miami (January 23-30, 2016). Sail-World.com caught up with Josh Adams, Managing Director of U.S. Olympic Sailing, to learn more about the team’s progress and competitiveness, prior to this summer’s Games.
Can you give me an idea as to how the team’s fund raising and financing is stacking up to other comparable countries? Also, how is the fundraising going compared to the last quad?
Our biggest challenge is funding and when you measure the U.S. Olympic sailing program against other top Olympic programs in the world-our competitors, we’re really a mid-sized team. We don’t have government funding-we rely solely on the generosity of donors, sponsors and the USOC. [Fundraising] really is our biggest challenge. Right now we’re managing our biggest budget ever, while recognizing that it’s still not big enough to do the job that we want to do.
To compare the U.S. to some of the most successful, largest, and admirable programs in the world, the British team is at least three times our size in terms of funding, we think the Australians are about twice [our fundraising size], and the Dutch are at about 1.5 [times our funding].
When you and I were kids growing up, the U.S. team performed really well-back then, were our budgets also mid-size compared to other top programs? Or, did the other programs come up to try and knock us off our pedestal?
Back then the U.S. budget was much smaller than it is now. The athletes were counted on to fund a major part of their sailing, which is still the case today. We do much more today for the athletes than we’ve ever done before, but it costs more and there’s still a huge financial burden on the athletes themselves. We work hard every year to try and reduce that burden.
I don’t have the data in front of me, but I’d say that all of the Olympic programs were smaller back then because there was a sea change in the game when professional coaching became a necessary ingredient for success in Olympic sailing. When that change came along, all Olympic teams started to increase their budgets. The Europeans and many of our competitors got real serious about coaching after 1984 when the USA really set the model, and it’s just gone up from there.
[N.B., Adams and I are both in our early 40s/late 30s, respectively.]
Given all of the talk about polluted water and dead dogs, does it feel strange to be spending so much time talking about mosquito bites these days?
Zika is different than the water situation. The water was on our radar since day one, and we have had concerns about it and taken action from day one, and we continue to monitor that and fine-tune our medical protocol for the athletes.
The Zika virus is a developing issue. We are collecting information from the USOC and other sources, and using that information to formulate our team’s plan. It will be a few months before our athletes return to Rio, and by then we will have a plan to prepare the athletes. We will face the Zika virus the same way that we have dealt [with] the Rio water-pollution issue, which is to really investigate it and rely on the experts who advise us on how to best prepare the athletes.
How serious a threat do you and the team perceive the Zika virus to be?
We are taking the Zika virus is very seriously, but there really isn’t much that I can say until we review our plan with the USOC and our team of medical experts.
From a coaching and management perspective, how much of a distraction has the water pollution and the Zika virus been for the sailors and for the team?
The Rio water-pollution issue has not been a distraction to our team because we got on it early. We got ahead of it by doing our own research with the USOC to understand the field of play in which we will compete. That study taught us a lot about the content of the water, based on our team’s group of medical experts. They analyzed the data and then came up with a set of recommendations that we use as preparation for the athletes. These are recommendations both for sailing, and for recovery in the event that anyone were to get ill.
It’s a serious situation that we monitor closely and we look at all data that’s available to us. But we feel like the preparations that we put in place have the athletes and coaches prepared. Because we got on this early before it became a headline, the athletes and the coaches have a level of confidence that they can sail down there and be safe.
The biggest part of our Rio strategy in dealing with the environment has been acclimatization, and we committed to that early. We’re going to spend time in Rio, we’re going to learn the venue and it’s complicated currents and its tricky winds, and we’re going to spend time and really embrace the place.
US Team Sperry has spent hundreds of days sailing on the Olympic racecourses with no major incident. I can’t sit here and tell you that no one will get sick, but what we’ve seen so far is that the preparations that have been put in place are keeping the athletes protected and confident about their ability to sail there, and the same goes for the coaches.
Any comments on the future of the Sailing World Cup Miami event? We’re hearing grumblings that some members of World Sailing wants to reduce the number of SWCs, and I have also heard that World Sailing wants to increase the number of European events as they draw the biggest numbers. Any thought on all of this?
Many thoughts! We think that the regatta that US Sailing hosts in Miami every winter has demonstrated to the world the kind of winter-sailing venue that Florida can be. Sailing World Cup Miami presented by Sunbrella was a huge success in 2016 and a huge success in 2015.
Every year of this [Olympic] quad, the International Olympic and Paralympic sailing community has submitted their vote for sailing World Cup venues with their feet by showing up in Miami every January. The last two years we have had more than 500 boats and more than 720 athletes competing from more than 62 countries. Miami is by far the most successful Olympic and Paralympic sailing event and Sailing World Cup event outside of Europe, and these numbers support that [statement]. We want to be part of the Sailing World Cup going forward. Ultimately, that’s a decision for the events committee at World Sailing. We like our chances because clearly people like to train and race on Biscayne Bay in the winter.
Whether Miami is part of the Sailing World Cup series going forward or not, we know that we are able to host a very successful and well-attended Olympic Class Regatta every January.
Through the years, we have worked with World Sailing on enhancing Sailing World Cup Miami in several areas, and one of those areas is the commercial platform of the regatta. Last year was the first year that Sunbrella came on board as the presenting sponsor, which has demonstrated the event’s viability from a sponsorship point of view. Great brands like Rolex, Sperry and Groupe Beneteau have supported the event over the years. That’s really important: we need sponsors to fund these events, and Miami being a popular sailing destination and a major U.S. city at an un-crowded time in the calendar has proven to be viable for our sponsors.
Anything else that you’d like to add, for the record?
This would be a great time to give a shout-out to the Clearwater Worlds. It’s been five years since the U.S. hosted a World Championship for an Olympic class, and Clearwater has stepped-up big time to host a three-class Worlds, a combined Worlds of all the high-performance boats-the 49er, the 49er FX and the Nacra 17-and they are putting on a show to demonstrate to the world what Clearwater can be as a sailing venue. It should be a really exciting week with really high-level competition.
Many thanks to Josh Adams for carving out the time to talk to Sail-Word.com before hoping on a R/P 69 for the Miami to Havana Race.
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