Sunday, August 17, 2008

Austin's Update... Recap after day 2


© Clive Mason/Getty Images John Dane III and Austin Sperry of the USA
It's the end of day two here in Qingdao. John Dane and I are in first place (Gold Medal) after 3 races.

It was a good day today with a score line of 2 and 4 (bit of a bummer as that 4 should have been a 2, but we got a bit tangled up with the tornados who were finishing at the same time).
It has been a long day on the water. I am a bit crispy even after applying 2 rounds of sun lube I am feeling a bit over cooked today.

This racing is very tight and very stressful. I think I may have aged 20 years in the last 2 days. Hopefully by the end of the regatta I won't look like I am 70 years old or something...

My mom and dad along with my good buddy Paul Erickson are all here (Sally has been here since the 7th of August). It's really great having them here to share this experience with them, after all I owe all of my success to them.

I am tired and I don't have much energy to put much effort into this update, but the standings for the top 3 boats are
1 - USA
2 - NZL
3 - POR

Two races tomorrow and it's supposed to be windy (low pressure moving through the area) This might be the only weakness with our (P-Star boat) is the upper wind range so we need to get through tomorrow with some good finishes and live to fight another day.

Regattas like this you need to not get to high or to low mentally. It's a long week and its wacky racing no matter how deep you are in the fleet never give up. This is key going forward....

Some of the other top teams have had a few bad races so its time to put the gas pedal down and turn the screws a bit more...

I will send another update after tomorrow's races. Later...
Austin http://www.austinsperry.com/