Roquetas de Mar, Spain - September 22 2008 - Great news! I have been nominated for the 2008 ISAF Rolex World Sailor of the Year Award. ISAF announced the nominees today and I was honored to be selected as a finalist.

The other women sailor finalists are the British Yngling 2008 Olympic Gold Medalist team of Sarah Ayton, Sarah Webb and Pippa Wilson, French match racer Claire Leroy, Australian 470 Olympic Gold Medalists Elise Rechichi and Tessa Parkinson, and Italian RS:X Silver Medalist Allesandra Sensini. 

The British Yngling sailors won their World Championship for the past two years and are currently ranked #1 in the world. Claire Leroy has dominated women’s international match racing for the past two years. She is currently ranked #1 and was the 2007 recipient of the Rolex World Sailor of the Year award. Elise Rechichi and Tessa Parkinson were the youngest Gold Medalists at the Qingdao Olympics and went into the Medal Race with an 18-point lead over the three-time World Champions from the Netherlands. Allesandra Sensini is the first woman to win four medals in Olympic sailing. She won Bronze in Atlanta in 1996, Gold in Sydney in 2000, Bronze in Athens in 2004 and Silver in Qingdao this year. For more about all of us, go to Rolex nominees.

The winner will be announced at the ISAF Annual Meeting in Madrid on November 11. This is the highest award a sailor can receive in recognition of his or her outstanding achievements by the world of sailing. The awards are presented every November to one male and one female winner.

I am very honored just to have been nominated, never mind becoming a finalist. The list of previous finalists has so many great names on it and to be thought of as part of that group is quite a special feeling.

I will be flying to Madrid with my husband Brad in November to be at the awards ceremony and I’ll write from there as soon as the winner is named. .

Sail hard

Anna