Being named to the US Sailing Development Team at 15 years old is a huge accomplishment in my sailing career but it is just the beginning of my path towards winning Olympic Gold!
I have decided that the best option for my development and success is to spend the next year training and competing to qualify for the single birth at the 2014 ISAF Youth World Championships, and then to win that regatta! This will require a serious training and regatta schedule over the next year to include top regattas in the USA and Europe and possibly a couple of weeks training with the Viper builders in Australia.
To qualify for Youth Worlds, I will have to win two events this year. The US Sailing Youth Champs in Texas and then Orange Bowl in Florida. In order to win both of these events, I need to find a crew that is willing to train and travel to attend some clinics and regattas so we are ready to win! In the perfect world, I would like to find a female partner so when we in youth worlds next year we can have the option to move into a NACRA17 campaign for Rio 2016 (The Olympic class requires mixed gender crews).
I am going to be training aggressively for the next couple of months, but specifically I am going to be at the US Sailing Team practice in Miami in March and then onto the CISA clinic in Long Beach in April. These two training opportunities are a great chance to put some serious time on the water together with the top coaches in the world and would be a great jumpstart to making sure we can win Youth Champs in August!
If you have ever thought about doing some exciting (high speed) sailing and want to work to win at Youth Worlds next year, text me at 216-210-3598! I guarantee that sailing this boat is a thrill you will not find on any other boat.
If you want to see my current plan for the next year click here!