SAILING: The thing you come to love about the Olympics or Youth Olympics is that competitors come in all shapes and sizes and competition formats come in many abstract forms.
Today at the Games, weightlifter Aydan McMahon had just six lifts to complete his Youth Olympic Games campaign here in Nanjing, China; meanwhile, sailors Elyse Ainsworth and Tom Cunich spent 12 hours making their way to their sailing venue, waiting for wind, dealing with postponements, eventually racing, and travelling back to the village- and this was just their second of five race days.
“You’ve just got to keep positive I guess- it’s a pretty long day. You’ve got to keep an open mind,” said Ainsworth as Cunich slept in the car on the journey back to the Youth Olympic Village.
“We got out this morning and had a few starts, but we never seemed to get through a full race. Halfway through first race the wind died out and we were basically having a drifting race as to who could drift the fastest.”
When racing eventually got underway, Ainsworth finished 18th and 24th in her two races while Cunich was 25th and 24th.
But the spirited sailor who lives in Western Australia got far more out of this testing day than a number on her results sheet.
“You’ve got to be one step ahead thinking there’s a chance I could go out again so you never switch off,” she said.
“It teaches you a lot just being able to have patience and being pretty strong mentally, there is a lot to learn from just drifting on shore waiting for something to happen- but it isn’t pointless there is a lot behind it there is a lot to learn.”
With two more races scheduled for tomorrow, Ainsworth is ready for whatever conditions greet these YOG sailors.
“There are definitely things I could improve on tomorrow. I’ve got to keep positive and keep taking things away from it chipping away at it.” Ainsworth said.
Sailing uses a “low point” scoring system whereby the winner of each race is awarded one point; second place is awarded two points and so on.
Ainsworth sits in 19th position while Cunich prefers to simply race without that equation in his head, but fared better yesterday with a 3rd and a 15th. For all competitors, it will be hard to be consistent in that kind of wind.
Racing continues over the next two days (two races daily) with the medal races on day 7- Saturday 23rd August. All competitors carry their series scores into the medal race where the stakes are higher- points are doubled in the medal race and added to the series score.
Taya Conomos
Olympics.com.au
@AUSOlympicTeam