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| Pre-Kiel Week Training At Chicago Match Race Center | | Print | |
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June 14, 2010
Chicago, Il
We have just
finished a four day training camp at the Chicago Match Race Center
as our warm up training for the 6th stop on the ISAF Sailing World
Cup, Kiel Week,
in Kiel, Germany.
Dial Up (Pre-Start)
Photo: Anna Tunnicliffe-Funk, June 2010 We practiced with our USSTAG teammates, Genny Tulloch and team, and had Dave Perry as our clinic coach. We had a variety of conditions which allowed us to cover different moves in different circumstances. It was a very useful clinic and allowed us to focus in on our perceived areas of weakness.
We arrived Thursday morning, the morning
after the Hawks won the Stanley Cup. The city was excited about the
win and although we didn't get to see it, we heard, from a distance,
the excitement as the Hawks showed off the Cup through Chicago on their
victory parade.
On the first night
of being here, we did a meet and greet with a couple local youth
sailors. They got to ask us questions about campaigning, sailing, and
training. We also got to ask them questions about their sailing, and
other sports, and it was a great opportunity to encourage them to give
match racing a try.
Close Hauled
Photo: Anna Tunnicliffe-Funk, June 2010
One of the sailors
we met, Emily Vasiliou, came back over the weekend to watch us train
since she really wants to get into the game. She came to all of our
chalk talks, helped us rig and de-rig and although the wind and weather
was pretty shaky when she was here, she got to do a bit of sailing in
the boat with us.
The second night
we participated in the evening match racing program run by the Chicago
Match Race Center. This evening program is for local sailors to come
down and match race the Tom 28's. The clinic on the evening we were
there, was run by Dave, and Genny's and our teams rotated through with
the local sailors to help where we could. The wind was fantastic that
evening, and we had a good 2-hour training session with them working on
pre-starts.
The weather turned
a bit gloomy for the last two days of training with thunderstorms
passing by, but for the most part, they missed us and we just got a
little wet, so we were very lucky.
Tomorrow, we are
off to Germany. The official practice day over there is on the 18th,
so it will give us a day to get settled and get over jet lag. Racing
starts on the 19th. It is shaping up to be a great event with a large
number of the top teams in atendance again. Kiel Week, or Kieler
Woche, is a huge two week festival in which the whole city
participates. Our regatta is a small part of the huge celebration, but
the great part, is the huge number of people who come by the boat park
to see what is going on. You can check it out at the regatta
website.
We would like to
give a huge thanks to Jen Wilson for housing us this week, and to the Chicago Match Race Center
for all of their help and assistance with us, and for holding a great
clinic.
We would like to
thank our sponsors Carmeuse
and Trinity Yachts
for their continued support of our campaign for the 2012 Olympics in
London. We would also like to thank US Sailing Team AlphaGraphics (USSTAG)
and their sponsors for their continued support.
Sail Hard,
Anna
TeamTunnicliffe
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Team Member
Representing the USA, Anna Tunnicliffe won the Gold Medal in the Women's Laser Radial dinghy at the 2008 Olympic Games in Qingdao, China. Anna was the ISAF world's Number One-ranked women's Radial sailor from April 9, 2008 to May 2010. She was voted 2009 & 2011 ISAF Rolex World Sailor of the Year. Now Anna, skipper of Team Maclaren, has teamed up with Molly O'Bryan Vandemoer and Debbie Capozzi to take on the world and go for Gold in 2012 London Olympic Games in Women's Match Racing and the team is currently ranked #1 in the ISAF WMR rankings.
