Our goal of winning an Olympic Gold Medal drives everything we do!
From the moment we wake up each morning and until our brains shut down on our pillow at night we are thinking about what we need to accomplish our goals which will lead us to winning Olympic Gold Medals in Rio 2016. We are 100% focused on the fact that we need to train more, work harder and sail smarter than everyone in order to make it happen and we know that it is critical to have the best training partners to continually push us to be better, stronger, smarter and faster. Sailing with the top Olympic Multihull coaches in training camps, one on one and small group practices build our awareness and hone our skills and training in the most challenging venues around the globe is vital to our development and our ability to handle all conditions we are likely to face when racing in the US Trials and the Games in Rio where we are going to win an Olympic Gold Medal.
We know what we need and we have structured our lives to give us every opportunity for success. We workout together every day in the gym, using the training program developed by the US Sailing Team trainers and our sponsors at Jaguar Therapeutics, are on the water sailing with training partners 5 days a week and 1-2 days each week on our own. We have training camps scheduled with the US Team, with top International teams and are working our schedule with leading coaches for individual practices in between. With all of this we are still at a disadvantage.
It is not just us at a disadvantage, but all US teams engaged in a full-time campaign to win an Olympic Gold Medal in Rio 2016. The disadvantage is not equipment related, it is not innate skill and surely isn’t a lack of passion. US athletes in general are at a disadvantage because unlike many nations around the globe, we have to privately fund our own Olympic campaigns. We are not complaining about it, the process teaches us a lot about how corporations make decisions, how the public views the sport of competitive sailing and how to get in front of corporations and individuals who help us with their generous support and drive us to success. It does however take considerable time away from training to make phone calls, presentations, follow-up and continually demonstrate our value and the value of our sport each and every day. It is a fact of life for American athletes that we lose training time to raise money to…well, to train and have to make decisions on where, when and with whom we will train based on our available budget when other nations athletes are fully funded and spend their entire time focused on training to be the best.
Winning an Olympic Gold Medal requires sacrifice. It requires dedication, focus and determination to overcome the obstacles in front of you, to be willing and able to never give up, to keep pushing when things are so difficult that everyone around you quits and to persevere when every ounce of you…physically, mentally and emotionally are telling you to throw in the towel. Winning isn’t magic. Winning isn’t about finding the “secret” way to be faster or better. Winning an Olympic Gold Medal is about continuing to train when everyone else heads in because they are tired, or because there is too much wind or rain, or not enough wind or its too hot or cold. Being a champion is about getting to the gym in the morning when everyone else is asleep (even when you are up till 2 am doing schoolwork) and going back to the gym at the end of the day while everyone else is out relaxing by the fire. Becoming a champion is about calling one more company looking for a way to earn money to support your training even though the last 387 companies told you that there is no value in supporting the sport of sailing. It takes the ability to see beyond the moment and to know that you can never give up no matter what is happening to you right now to be a champion…to be an Olympic Gold Medalist!
We have our eyes focused on our goal. We are strong, we are young, we are nimble and we are driven to achieve our goal and to be the best in the world at Rio! It takes a lot of skill, it takes a lot of hard work, it takes a lot of time and it takes a lot of money to make it come true…to make a champion. We are going to be champions because we are never going to let any obstacle get in our way. We will persevere and we will continue to fight to achieve our dreams…and yes, we will continue to ask everyone we know to give us as little or as much financial support as you can and just as importantly we will ask you if you can ask your friends, your family and your business contacts to donate to our efforts and to help us do what we know we need to do to win Olympic Gold Medals in Rio.
Our perfect training budget, the one that practically guarantees that we will win Gold in Rio costs us nearly $1500 per day. We can and are scratching by with less because we need to be able to pay for our equipment, our coaching, our travel and our food. We can do with less but we know we will bring home the Gold if we can do it right each and every day and we need your help to do that. Will you please give us what you can today to help us win?
There are lots of ways that you can donate money to our campaign. You can mail us a check or you can just hand us a pile of cash when you see us in the boatpark, but it is probably easier and more realistic for us to ask you to make a donation on one of the following campaigns we have running right now:
We have this Tackk running where you can give us from $1 up to $1,000. It is a little corny and it’s a little funny but we really do need your help. https://tackk.com/hysaxt
Just launched our fundraiser to buy a new boat for the most important regattas next year at Dreamfunda. If you could donate the full amount, or anything at all it will help us to have a nice stiff boat to dominate the waters while we race in the ISAF World Cup Series. https://www.dreamfunda.com/Campaign/2015NACRA17#home
We don’t want to sound desperate, after all we are not going to give up if you tell us no. We are going to keep pushing and keep asking people to help us while we train and compete and get stronger as we go. Your financial support of our campaign is critical to our success though. If you can give us $1 or $100,000 it definitely makes an impact on our training and will result in us winning Olympic Gold Medals when we compete in Rio 2016.
Does your company need event marketers, interested in advertising on a sail or just love to see American athletes win? Please ask them to read through our blog and consider supporting our campaign. Your request might be the one that gets us in the door to our title sponsor!