Paralympics Preview
The Rio 2016 Paralympic Games will be held on September 7-18, with sailing on September 11-17 on Guanabara Bay.
The Paralympic Games began in Rome in 1960. Sailing first appeared as a demonstration sport in Atlanta in ’96 and was first included as a full medal sport at Sydney 2000, where the the singlehanded 2.4mR keelboat made its debut. The class is known for close racing.
"I have been on this Road to Rio for 18 months now, and it has been a crash course on how to get competitive in the 2.4 class," says USA team member Dee Smith, a professional sailor and former Marinite who now lives in Annapolis. "The class has some amazing sailors that have been at it for a long time. I expect a very tight regatta in Rio."
West Coast sailor Jeff Madrigali, an Olympic medalist who won bronze in the Soling in Atlanta, spent part of July in Rio with his friend doing two-boat testing. "We were able to test out a possible breakthrough in sail design, rig tune, boat set-up and revisit some sailing techniques," says Smith. "We worked on currents, tidal variations, weather and geographical elements on the two Olympic race courses every day for up to six hours each day."
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Among the obstacles that Paralympic sailors will need to overcome in order to compete are budget cuts to the Rio Paralympic Games, according to the BBC. About the situation in Rio, Smith said: "It is not perfect down there, but our job is to keep the distractions to a minimum." For more about Dee, see www.deesail.com.
Racing for the USA in the two-person SKUD-18 will be Ryan Porteous of San Diego and gold medalist Maureen McKinnon (Beijing, 2008). Five-time Rolex Yachtswoman of the Year Betsy Alison has been their coach. "I think we can compete with the best boats in the world," said Porteous. See their site at www.skud71.org.
The triplehanded Sonar rounds out the Paralympic sailing classes. Alphonsus Doerr, Bradley Kendell and Hugh Freund will sail for the the US. This will be the second Paralympic Games for Doerr, who competed at Beijing 2008, and the first for Kendell and Freund.
To subscribe to US Sailing’s Rio Report daily email updates or get links to the team’s social media and more, see the viewing guide at www.ussailing.org/olympics/rio2016guide, where you’ll also find a detailed schedule of races. NBC Sports has not released their broadcast schedule yet.
EDITOR’S NOTE: In case you’ve been hibernating under an over-turned fishing dory, let us remind you that we’re heading into Labor Day Weekend, so the Latitude offices will be closed Monday, September 5, and we will not be publishing ‘Lec Lat on that day. We hope you’ll be able to spend some quality time on the water this weekend, but as always, be safe out there.