US Sailing Team at 2020 ILCA Women's Laser Radial World Championships

US Sailing Team at 2020 ILCA Women's Laser Radial World Championships - Day 4

by Brittney Manning 26 Feb 2020 15:29 GMT

Erika Reineke at the 2020 ILCA Women's Laser Radial World Championships, Day 4 © Jon West Photography

Competitors at the 2020 ILCA Women's Laser Radial World Championships finally had a full day of racing, competing in three 15-20 knot races, to close out the qualifying series.

After an unusual light and tricky start to the event, today delivered the famous Port Phillip Bay solid breeze with steep waves, challenging the competitors to a long and physical session.

US Sailing Team Laser Radial coach Steve Mitchell (GBR) knew today would be an endurance battle, so during his morning meeting with the athletes, he said, "If you don't come back to the dock completely exhausted then you didn't try hard enough today."

Living up to Mitchell's expectation, U.S. Laser Radial athletes delivered on the water and were exhausted by the time they finished all three races. Despite the long, tiring day, the grueling effort paid off especially well for Erika Reineke (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.) and Paige Railey (Clearwater, Fla.). Both finished all three races in the top-ten, and Reineke even came away with a top-three finish.

Today's strong performance in the windy conditions is a marked improvement from Reineke and Railey's historical performances in heavy air, and are a testament to the training they've focused on over the past few months.

"They've all spent a lot of time in the gym in the last six months," said Mitchell. "We've switched their programs around so they would be better in these conditions, getting them stronger, slightly heavier, and more fit. because historically, these conditions haven't been their strongest. We also expect to see similar conditions in Tokyo - strong winds with this kind of aggressive wave state - so we changed their gym programs to get them stronger, slightly heavier, and more fit. A lot of their on the water training has also been directed at hiking and enduring the pain over and over."

Railey is glad to see her hard work pay off, "It's good that the changes we've been making and things we've been doing in training are paying dividends when those conditions come at race time."

While Charlotte Rose (Houston, Texas) had an unfortunate capsize in the final race thanks to the aggressive wave state, her time in the gym helped her finished the other two races in 19th and 10th. After today, she moved up a couple of positions to 28th overall.

Tomorrow, the competitors and race organizers are expecting sailable conditions all day, so the start time has been moved forward to 11:00 a.m., local time. Three races are scheduled, and the Race Committee is optimistic that the windy forecast will deliver an efficient day on the water. As they have met the minimum threshold of qualifying races, the final series will begin tomorrow. U.S. athletes Railey, Reineke, and Rose will be among the top 53 sailors advancing to gold fleet and Hanne Weaver (Gig Harbor, Wash.) will compete in silver fleet.

U.S. Laser Radial Results