America One Racing ILCA 7 World Championship - Adelaide AUS
The A1R ILCA 7 team has just concluded the World Championships in Australia, with 152 boats from 52 countries, a team of 8 USA athletes competed and took away personal best results and some great highlights during the regatta.
Most of the team spent the whole of January there, competing at the Australian Nationals (102 boats) and 2 solid weeks of training before worlds.
The goal of the team was to try and qualify the USA for a country spot at the 2024 Olympics, there were 7 spots up for grabs, and 35 countries hoping to get a place.
The A1R Squad
Marshall McCann
Ford McCann
Leo Boucher
Chapman Petersen
Robby Meek
SUMMARY - Overall the team have upped their game at an international level, but it takes time to climb through this very deep and competitive fleet.
Six months ago in the Hague at the last World Championship (138 boats) our highest finish overall was 76th, with no boats in Gold fleet.
Here we had 2 boats in Gold Fleet, our highest finish was 44th, and 3 boats scored personal best results (Ford, Marshall and Chapman)
We were 42nd country overall at the last Worlds, here we were 29th country.
We were still outside of an Olympic berth, but we have a last chance qualifier in France in April where 3 more spots will be available, and another 13 will have already qualified through Continental qualifiers.
The time that the team spent training during the summer in California, the fall in Florida and the winter in Portugal and Australia have really made a difference, with the athletes now being competitive at a world level, and having highlight races, we still lack the top end speed and the experience of the international fleet, but with the A1R team working together training hard we are closing the gap.
None of this would be possible without the support of AmericaOne Racing. The training camps that we held in the USA and the coaching support at both these and the Worlds have allowed the team to push each other to a higher level.
NEXT STEPS:
Olympic trials Miami Feb 17th-24th
Princess Sofia Regatta (ESP) Mar 29- Apr 6th
Hyeres (FRA) Last Chance Regatta April 19th-27th