| Skandia Sail For Gold Begins Tomorrow | | Print | |
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June 3, 2012
Weymouth, UK
Tomorrow is the start of racing at the 2012 Skandia Sail For Gold Regatta, our last stop on the ISAF World Cup Series. It has been a while since our last blog; we have been up to quite a bit but are looking forward to, and are ready to go racing tomorrow morning.
Team Maclaren had some great training sessions this week with ORACLERacing's Jimmy Spithill!
Photo: copyright US Sailing Team Sperry Top-Sider/Dana Paxton 2012
 After qualifying for the Olympics, we headed home for three days before we went to Dallas for the USOC Media Summit, a day filled with interviews and photo shoots. It was a great experience for Team Maclaren and we were all very amazed at how much the media knew about us and our sport. The event lasted three days, during which almost every Olympic sport was represented by at least one athlete, so it was also a great opportunity to meet other athletes on Team USA. In addition, the First Lady came and gave a speech supporting her campaign against Child Obesity. This gave us an opportunity to meet her and shake her hand.
(Photo: copyright US Sailing Team Sperry Top-Sider/Dana Paxton 2012)
From there, we had five days at home before it was back on the 'planes and off to Spain, for an US Olympic Sailling Team team-building trip. It was a chance for all 16 athletes to get to know each other better. We went on a 10k hike the first day, the second day was an 'amazing race', which involved a 50k bike ride, a 13k walk/run (uphill the whole way), hitch hiking, Flamenco dancing, riding a camel, and windsurfing. Day three was a day off from the physical activities, but we were involved in team work in meetings. We, Molly, Deb and I, don't get to spend much time with our other teammates usually because of logistics - our launch site is away from the main launching area or because our schedule doesn't co-incide with the rest of the teams' schedules - so for us it was a good opportunity to interact with our fellow team members and get to know everyone just that little bit better. The trip concluded and we all headed to Weymouth UK to get in some training before the Skandia Sail For Gold Regatta.
We hopped right into training the day after we arrived and used day one to refresh our boathandling. For the next three days, we had Jimmy Spithill, ORACLERacing, in to offer some fresh thoughts on our sailing. It was very good to have another perspective on what we were doing, and we learned one or two new things too. After Jimmy left, we got in Dayne Sharpe for the remaining days of training. We again got a new perspective, an outsider's view. It was very helpful to learn his thoughts on our sailing - he has watched us a fair amount over the years - and he gave us some new ideas on which to work as well. Today was a day off for us as we rested up for a long week of sailing. We have 13 teams for this event, all the Olympic teams plus one. Racing starts at 10am tomorrow, but we have a bye the first race before hopping in for three races. You can follow the scores at the regatta website. We would very much like to thank our Title Sponsor, Maclaren, our Gold Level Sponsors 11th Hour Racingand Laser Performance, and our Bronze Level Sponsors Carmeuse, Trinity Yachts, Chicago Match Race Center, and Sperry Top-Siderfor their continued support of our campaign for the 2012 Olympic Games. We would also like to thank St Francis Sailing Foundation, and US Sailing Team Sperry Top-Sider and its sponsors for their continued support. Also, thank you to our private donors. Please remember that any and all donations/contributions to our campaign should be made payable to Sailing Foundation of New York, in the memo write 'Anna Tunnicliffe' and send to Sailing Foundation of New York (this one is tax deductible); or to Anna Tunnicliffe (via PayPal). (Please follow the links for more information. Thank you.) Sail Hard, And as usual, don't forget, email us your questions and comments. We love getting them and sharing our love of sailing and women's match racing.
Anna: 4D's: "Dream,Desire,Dedication,Discipline" TM
Team Maclaren: 3P's: Passion...Performance...Perfection...TM
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Team Member
.jpg "Team Maclaren")
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.
