Covering Olympic Sailing for Sailing World Magazine in Rio de Janeiro. Follow here or at http://www.sailingworld.com/racing/olympics

Aug 12, 2016

Rio Olympics Day 4

Sorry for the lack of posts, it has been full on here! Here’s my writeup from racing yesterday. This morning, we’re 5 days in with 6 to go (7 if we are extended into a reserve day due to weather).

Annie Haeger and Briana Provancha certainly like keeping their fans on the edge of their seats. Off the starting line in tenth, they slowly made their way up the fleet, making an incredible climb on the final downwind leg from ninth to second place.

“We didn’t take a lot of risk, and we focused on one boat at a time,” says Provancha on the team’s tactics for finding passing opportunities. “Every little thing you do right helps you make up lots of ground.” In the last race of the day the wind kicked up and a number of boats capsized, but Haeger and Provancha’s conservative and steady progression in the fleet paid off, earning then a second place finish.