I spoke with Dean about three weeks before the games with similar questions. Before I check out his current point of view on what happened... i want to give his point of view prior to the games.
His central point was that he was RETRING and that the new director would be running the program his way.
He would be making recommendations based on his experience.... so...any issues I might have as part of the MHC and Championship Committee would be taken up with the new guy... who was not yet announced.
His point of view was and remains the following... Olympic Sailing is fundamentally different from Class OD sailing.
OLYMPIC candidates put themselves on the track and develop their skills independently. His leadership put in place Common Team based practices and training requirements that supported the sailors.... Racing at the last three ISAF Grade I events would sort out the US representatives.
1. With the introduction of the Nacra 17 for the 2016 games, does US Sailing plan to incorporate more multihulls into its youth development efforts? Could we see a multihull class at youth champs and at the elite clinics such as CISA and the Brooke Gonzalez? Is there a plan in place to identify multihull talent for the USDT and then provide them with high level coaching and access to the Nacra 17?
CISA has done multihull clinics for juniors on Hobie 16s but lack of interest stopped their participation.
Is there an organized Youth cohort that would show up for a major Independent Junior championship? In my years as chair, I have not seen more then a handful of junior sailors competing.
US Olympic will not be buying boats.
He does not live in a vacuum... He is well aware of the top multihull sailors and their potential and goals. Moreover, his connections with Olympic coaches, past and present continually assess the talent pool.
He reminded me that US Olympic is not developing a large pool of world class cat racers... they want ONE team to win a medal.
We did not discuss specific sailors but I was confident that he was well aware of the current top sailors. (Would i like his judgement. probably not but, He was getting paid to make those calls to win medals.)
2. With the Nacra 17 being a new class, does the USST plan to work with the established multihull classes to create training and racing opportunities for potential olympic campaigners? What can we do as a class to support the efforts of our future olympians?
Olympic Sailing is unlike Class OD sailing. Each sailor makes their own judgement of how much they want to participate in their Class OD activities. US Olympic has attempted to partner with Class events in the recent past and they concluded that this was not a good thing. Dean strongly recommends that US Olympic run their own events which are independent of a OD class or Club.
What one design classes can do is to encourage any sailor with an Olympic goal to get as much training and coaching as they can and compete at the highest level of the F18 class as they can. The standards for the Olympic Development team are published and members are evaluated yearly. If your goal is the Olympics... go for it.
I also wonder about how college sailing impacts olympic development,
College Sailing has developed 2 of the last 3 Multihull teams that competed internationally. Johnny and Charlie and Lars and his Sheet hand, were college all Americans. They put themselves into the ISAF top 20 by getting initial coaching from Randy and then other top level coaches and training partners. The notion that you must grow up in a high performance class to be successful is simply not supported by the facts.
It is a hard world... and US Olympic is not a gravy train by any stretch of the imagination.
My last recommendation to Dean was that the Olympic Sailors are almost invisible to the rank and file sailor. The next cycle and leadership should look for ways to reconnect the Olympic wanna be to the rank and file.
For the record, I have grown to appreciate Dean's point of view and told him so quite recently. I have had several contentious arguments with Dean in the distant past but I truly respect his willingness to discuss my concerns and listen to my point of view. I might not like his answers at the time but I acknowledge that he always gave me straight answers. I will personally thank Dean for all of the hard work and he has put in and the spears that he has caught over the years. Of course we all wish that the US Sailors had done a bit better at Weymouth.
Mark
