U.S. Olympic Team Qualifying Regatta starts on Friday

Final event will determine Women’s Match Racing Team for 2012 Olympic Games

On May 4, the USA’s top Olympic hopefuls in Women’s Match Racing will begin competition in the 2012 U.S. Olympic Team Qualifying Regatta, in Weymouth, England. Organized by US Sailing, the national governing body for the sport and the Olympic Sailing Committee (OSC), the event is scheduled for May 4-9 at the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy, site of the 2012 Olympic Sailing Regatta. The event will determine the three women’s match racing representatives for the 2012 Olympic Team. Daily racing recaps, results and photos will be on the event site.

The four teams competing advanced to this event – the second, and final, selection event for the 2012 Olympic Team – by finishing in the top four at the U.S. Olympic Team Qualifying Regatta, part 1, October 26-30 at Key Biscayne Yacht Club, in Miami, Fla.

Competing teams in order of ISAF ranking: (April 18)

#1 Anna Tunnicliffe (Plantation, FL) with Molly Vandemoer (Stanford, Calif.) and Debbie Capozzi (Bayport, N.Y.)
#6 Sally Barkow (Nashotah, WI), with Elizabeth Kratzig Burnham (Miami, Fla.) and Alana O’Reilly (Charleston, S.C.)
#10 Genny Tulloch (Sausalito, CA) with Alice Manard Leonard (East Haven, Conn.) and Jenn Chamberlin (Washington, D.C.)
#28 Stephanie Roble (East Troy, WI) with Maggie Shea (Chicago, Ill.) and Darby Smith (Chicago, Ill.)

The teams headed by Tunnicliffe, Barkow and Tulloch are members of US Sailing Team Sperry Top-Sider.

The event format will consist of two stages. Stage 1 – Semifinal Knockout Series, in which the winner of each semifinal series will be the first boat to score six points. As the top-ranked skipper, Anna Tunnicliffe selected Stephanie Roble as her opponent in this stage. Sally Barkow and Genny Tulloch will compete in the other Semifinal Series match.

The winner of each of the two Semifinal Knockout Series matches will advance to Stage 2 – the Final Knockout Series, which is also a “first to win six matches” round. The winner will represent USA at the 2012 Olympic Games. The Olympic Sailing Regatta will be held July 27 – August 12, 2012, in Weymouth and Portland, located on the southern coast of England, approximately 120 miles southwest of London.

“Very soon we will have a complete 2012 US Olympic Sailing Team,” said Dean Brenner (Wallingford, Conn.), Chairman of the Olympic Sailing Committee. “It is always a long road to the Olympic Games for the athletes, and the Women’s Match Racing selection is almost complete. Each of the four teams competing this week has put in a tremendous effort preparing for the Trials. We’re proud of each and every sailor, and their hard work and dedication to the Olympic dream.”

The OSC representative for the event is Carol Cronin (Jamestown, R.I.), 2004 Olympian in women’s keelboat (Yngling); principal race officer is Tom Duggan (Hyannis, Mass.); women’s match racing consultant is Liz Baylis (San Rafael, Calif.), executive director of Women’s International Match Racing Association (WIMRA); and chief umpire is Tom Rinda (HOME).

US Sailing selected the 13 athletes in the nine fleet racing Olympic events based on two previous events: 2011 Sail for Gold and 2011 ISAF Sailing World Championships. The USA qualified in each of the 10 events selected for the 2012 Olympic Games with a maximum team size of 16.

The 10 sailing events selected for the 2012 Olympic Games are: Finn (Heavyweight Dinghy); Laser Radial (Women’s One Person Dinghy); Laser (Men’s One Person Dinghy); 470 Men (Men’s Two Person Dinghy); 470 Women (Women’s Two Person Dinghy); 49er (Men’s Two Person Dinghy High Performance); RS:X (Men’s Windsurfer); RS:X (Women’s Windsurfer); Star (Men’s Keelboat); and Elliott 6m (Women’s Match Racing).

All selection procedures have been reviewed and approved by the USOC Team Selection Working Group. For additional details about the selection procedures for the 2012 Olympic Team - Sailing, please click here.

To read an interview with OSC Chairman Dean Brenner about the evolution of the 2012 selection procedures, please click here.