USA Silver in Paralympic Sailing

We took a little break from reporting on the Paralympics to cover the Rolex Big Boat Series in San Francisco, but we couldn’t let another day go by without acknowledging the accomplishments of the Americans who competed last week in Rio.

Huge kudos are due the Sonar team of Rick Doerr (Clifton, NJ), Brad Kendell (Tampa, FL) and Hugh Freund (South Freeport, ME). The silver they won is the first Paralympic medal for all three. The Australian team won the gold and the Canadians bronze in that class. Several teams were in the running for the silver and bronze going into Saturday, the sixth and final day of sailing at Rio 2016, but Team USA saved their best race for last and finished first out of 15 teams.

Aussies also claimed the gold in the doublehanded keelboat, the SKUD 18. The only sailors in history to defend a Paralympic title were Australia’s Daniel Fitzgibbon and Liesl Tesch, who won with two races to spare. Sailing on Day 5 was just a victory lap — one in which they finished second. Ryan Porteous of San Diego and Beijing 2008 gold medalist Maureen McKinnon (Marblehead, MA) were eliminated from medal contention on Friday. They completed the event with a respectable fifth place out of 11 teams. 

Dee Smith of Annapolis scored his third first-place finish on Friday, Day 5. The professional sailor and cancer survivor thus held onto fourth overall, entering Saturday two points away from third. Alas, his sixth-place finish in the final race kept him in fourth overall in the field of 16. France’s Damien Seguin saved the gold medals from an Aussie sweep, becoming a double Paralympic gold medalist. Thanks to a bullet in the final race, Australia’s Matt Bugg leapfrogged to silver, dropping former champion Helena Lucas of the UK to bronze.

Smith, Porteous and McKinnon’s results are encouraging should they want to continue campaigning in their respective classes — unfortunately sailing has been nixed from the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics. But other championships await.

See complete results here, and go here for Paralympic sailing news.