The games ended yesterday for JD and I as we finished the regatta in 11th and today’s medal race only included the top 10 boats in the fleet.

I could go on a race by race re-cap of what happened but basically when the wind was 10kts or above we were slow, 8kts and under the boat was a complete weapon.

It’s been a long week. JD and I went for it, we measured in our light air boat, sails and gear package. The weather forecast was mainly for light breeze with the chance of 1 to 2 days of breeze during our regatta (which our boat struggles in because it is optimized for the light wind as we have seen in over 40 days of training here this summer and 10 years of wind and weather data we figured the odds were in our favor). Well, it was windy for 7 races (we struggled in each one of them) and in the 3 light air races we had a 2,4,4.

Mark Pickel and Coach Rodney Hagebols built us a fantastic boat that did and performed exactly how we wanted, but the wind gods were not in our corner this week. A huge thanks to Mark and Rodney for basically dedicating their lives to this project and the boat came out beautifully. The passion that went into building these boats is something to be applauded. Pure craftsmanship. If you can’t tell, I am still totally blown away by the work ethic of Mark and Rodney. The BEST. Period. They are two of my best friends, we get on each other’s cases, but it’s out of competitiveness, nothing personal just pushing each other to achieve greatness. It may not have ended the way both of us wanted but we nearly died trying.

My thoughts on the entire event.

What an experience. Walking in the opening ceremony in front of 90,000 screaming fans, the media, the billions of people watching on tv, the people I met, the contacts I made was truly priceless. I can’t put into words how I have grown as an athlete and as a person from this entire experience.

I just finished watching the medal race in the Star Class (my class) where we saw GBR take gold, BRA take silver and SWE bronze. It’s bitter sweet, these guys are all my best friends in the world and I am VERY happy for them. On the flip side I am extremely jealous, they have what I want …a medal! It’s a hard pill to swallow knowing how close we were and how hard we worked but yet how far away in reality. We worked maybe harder then anyone else in this fleet, spent hours working on weaknesses, countless hours going over data from boat designers, sail designs, photos you name it we spent hours and hours on everything. To come up short is a hard thing to comprehend and it still hasn’t fully sunk in that its over.. for now.

People have been saying to me how proud of us they are and how great it was we made it to the Games. For me for my life it’s never been about just making it, in anything I do I always want to be the best, to win in any athletic competition any business deal I am involved with ANYTHING, and to make it this far and come up short I feel like I have let my teammate John Dane down (who will never get a chance for another medal) to all my fans out there (who send me hundreds of emails (I promise I will try to respond to them all but it’s been hard getting through them all) my coaches Hans Wallen, Rodney Hagebols, Steve Erickson (you guys have challenged me in many different ways on and off the water).

Rodney I am not sure if I could of made it this far without your knowledge about life and your approach to everything you do. Your attitude and outlook on life is something that I strive to become. Hansy my hansy, it’s been a great 3 years and I consider you one of my best friends, your knowledge of sailing and your abilities as a coach are some of the best on this planet and again I would not be where I am in my sailing career without you. Steve “Wonder” Erickson your total dedication and your total focus never give up attitude and your ability to see the good in every situation has made me a better person. I am able to look at things from all different angles after hanging with the three of you. JD I am not sure where to begin, it’s been a fantastic journey, one I am sure neither of us will ever forget and one that no one outside our core group of teammates, tuning partners, coaches and your daughter will ever understand (and they shouldn’t even try, they won’t come close to getting it). What you have achieved on and off the water has set an example for many people. I am proud to have been a part of the journey with you and I consider you a great friend, but the one thing I am most thankful from JD would have to be the opportunity he has given me on and off the water. He has never given me anything except an opportunity and for this I am forever indebted.

To my parents
Mom, I don’t think I can express my thanks and appreciation for everything you have done for me in my life, you drove me around on my paper route at 5 am to make sure I was at the ice rink for hockey practice at 7. I am not sure how many parents would do that for their kids. To my father the best gift you have ever given me was you always let me be Austin, not someone you wanted me to be. You never bailed me out of trouble and looking back on those lessons it helped me become who I am today. My wife, my best friend Sally, this hasn’t been easy sometimes but you have always been my biggest fan, my biggest supporter and all this success wouldn’t have been possible with out you. I love you all.

To my friends, family and fans
I love you all, you have supported me in the great times, you stuck by me when I didn’t think I could go on you motivated me to be great. Paul and Val Erickson – I love you guys! You have taken me in 10 years ago and I value every moment we hang out, your wisdom is priceless. Dodie Siben your words have inspired me to do things I thought not possible. Your a great friend.

What’s next?
I am not sure, but I can tell you this the future is bright, I have gotten a few offers to write a book, I guess the people over at NBC like my style so we will see where all this leads. I miss Wall Street, so I will be looking at a few offers in that field, I love sailing, but I need a break….. I am thinking about putting a RC44 team together so still actively seeking sponsorship for this next great adventure. But above all I am going to work on being a better husband and spending more time with my wife, hopefully starting a family is around the corner.
All very exciting times.

In closing, I want to thank ALL of you out there you have all had a tremendous impact on my life in one way or another, for those of you who did not believe in me I really thank you for the extra motivation to wake up and beat you on and off the water.

This adventure is done and to quote my friend and mentor Paul Cayard, “The richest people on this planet are the ones with the greatest life experiences”. If this is true, I am already a billionaire.

Respectfully yours,

Austin

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

It’s been an unbelievable few days in Beijing. First off, the opening ceremony was something I will take to the grave. This experience is something no one, not even the most gifted writer could explain properly. I will do my best to depict the experience but this will still not do the actual event justice. Here it goes.

JD and I arrived on Thursday, August 7th from Qingdao. Sally and her brothers and sisters also arrived the same day. That evening, JD had dinner with George H. W. Bush and Peter Ueberroth (head of the USOC). Really cool experience!! After he finished, we met at the MPC for a quick interview with the Today Show. I think many of you saw the clip seen (based on the amount of emails you have sent me saying how sexy I am on tv…).

I woke up bright and early on August 8th, the USOC sent a car to pick me up and took me to the Olympic Village. WOW! I have done many things in my life that warrant the word cool I am living the dream, but this was by far and away the coolest thing I have EVER done in my life.

I hooked up with my US Sailing Teammates and started walking around the village taking it all in, people watching, star gazing and just totally experiencing the village life! The first place I went was the dining hall. This place was HUGE! I think you could fit four football fields under this one roof. It had every kind of food you could imagine. It even had a McDonalds in there (I never ate there, but LeBron James, & Carmelo Anthony were eating a Big Mac after opening ceremonies)! My first star sighting was Amanda Beard (the swimmer, I got a quick picture with her!!).

Next, I bumped into Dirk Nowitzki of the Dallas Mavericks (he is playing for Germany here). I said hello and he couldn’t have been nicer!! Then it hit me I saw my idol from the other side of the room I could pick him out of a crowd, I nearly dropped my food try… It was George Hincapie (cyclist on ALL of Lance Armstrongs winning Tour teams). I went up to him and introduced myself and just like ALL the magazines say he might of been the nicest guys I have ever met, he even sat down with me and chatted about the recent Tour de France he competed in two weeks ago and showed me his road rash from his 40 mph crash while going down the famed Aples de Huez… I ran into a few of my wrestling friends I had met in Chicago back in May and saw a few of my water polo buddies…

At 1645 I started getting dressed for the opening ceremony, 1700 downstairs to walk over to the USA Team building to meet and gather with all the other team USA members.
We were all driven over to the fencing hall where only the USA team was and lo and behold our President G.W Bush was there to give us a pep talk. The President was there with Laura and his father G.H.W. Bush (I met them all and even had my photo taken with them all – plus a picture with the President’s daughter!).

After his speech we mingled with the other athletes and I met EVERYONE on the basketball team!! I got pictures with my favorite NBA super stars Kobe Bryant, LaBron James, D Wade, CP3 Carlos Boozer, Jason Kid, even Coach K posed for a quick snap shot with me!!!

I also I got a photo with Freddy Adu the USA Soccer Phenom and Tyson Gay was a really cool person!!. ALL were the nicest guys… The NBA stars were very good sports and took time to talk to all of us. It’s really amazing how famous those guys are. Kobe is by far and away the biggest superstar in China. When we were walking to the stadium there were thousands of people lining the barricades screaming his name (I was walking right next to him and the guy was a total pro and a nice guy I dont know how he managed but it was impressive).
I think the biggest thing that I will remember is before we walked out on the field in front of 90,000 screaming fans all 600 USA team members stopped in the tunnel and started chanting USA, USA, USA. I still get chills writing about it those three letters reverberated off the walls and through my skin. It was very emotional to be part of something like this and something people could never come close to imagining having never lived it themselves. You don’t learn this stuff or gain experiences like this in any college or any B School. Just unreal.

In case you are wondering, YES it was me who in front of the camera said “HI MOM” the fellow next to me was my sailing buddy and 04 silver medalist Charlie Olgetree, great guy and like me equally funny (well maybe a little less than I am). Standing in that stadium during the opening ceremony was an incredible experience. The most memorable thing besides the tunnel experience and walking around the circle with the rest of the team was the torch lighting. To see it in person was incredible! I am not sure how London 2012 will top that as I think it will be a very tough act to follow.

Let’s see what else have I been up to?

My sponsor Oakley sunglasses has what they call a safe house here. It’s awesome only athletes and their guests, and select media are allowed inside. They rented out the 3rd floor of this night club and remodeled it with tons of TVs, lots of display cases for ALL the Oakleys that they give us to wear during the Olympics. Air hockey tables and all the food you can eat! It’s great and it feels like home! Al Janc and Megan Pura really did a super job of making me and my family welcome. Great glasses and great people who I am very happy about being associated with.

On the evening of the 9th Sally, my brother in law Schaeffer and me headed over to the Oakley Safe House for dinner and to see what else was happening. It didn’t take very long for Sally to make some friends (who I will not name, but trust me they are very famous cyclists who just rode 160 miles and competed earlier in the day and there Olympics were done so they were ready to rock). Just so happened that I was on the VIP list at a Budwesier party at Club Bud. The six of us arrived and were ushered up the red carpet where the media waited and filmed us. That night lasted way too late. Basically, I now have even more respect for professional cyclists. I don’t even know how those guys were standing after racing for seven hours…. just insane.

Last night JD and I did another interview with NBC, it went really well and I am sure you can find it on nbcolympics.com. After the interview, I was able to score some swimming and gymnastics tickets for the whole family. During the gymnastics, I got to meet the CEO of American Century and his family. You may not make much of this, but I used to work on Wall Street and I miss it on a daily basis. They couldn’t have been nicer, what a great family and great kids! I look forward to staying in touch post Olympics!!

I came down with a bit of the flu but not to worry I was in good hands with the USOC doctor who gave me some medicine and sent me on the way.

Tomorrow, JD and I head back to Qingdao. We measure our boat on the 13th and racing begins on the 15th.

Time to go to work.

Austin

This is a historic day in my life!

Man, I cannot believe how cool this experience is, I worked so hard to be here and now it seems that it was worth it – giving up most of my life to follow my dreams and believe in my passion.

I got a call today from the US Sailing press officer Derby Anderson and she told me that JD and I were going on the Today Show – with Matt Laurer, Ann Curry and Meredith!

Sally and the entire Dane armada arrived this evening and we headed straight to the Olympic Village We went directly to the (MPC) Main Press Center, so we could secure temp passes for everyone to get into the venue to watch the filming of the Today show.

I was taken to the green room to wait until the producer told me to head to the set. Well, in the green room there were quite a few very cool people. The first person was David Lauren and his girlfriend (you know of Ralph Lauren POLO). They made and designed our opening ceremony outfits which are pretty cool!!!! So I had a nice long chat with them and introduced myself to 3 track cyclists who were all very cool!! I am a huge cycling fan, so meeting some of these guys was a highlight. I also met Peter Ueberroth, the Chairman of the US Olympic Committee.

It’s funny, when that alarm clock went off 6 days a week at 4:45am back home in Gulfport MS to get into the gym and the countless hours of sitting in terminals or the 16 times I have been across the globe, it finally makes total sense on why I gave 150% total effort to this project. Standing in the middle of the Olympic Village was something like I have never seen before, The Birds Nest (site of the opening ceremony and Track and Field), the Swim Tank (at night it is lit up and looks like a bunch of boulders) or the mist that is coming off the practice fields, these sights make everything I have ever sacrificed seem worth it.

We made it, I can’t believe it, I can’t sleep its 1am here on 8/8/08 and today is the day its opening ceremony!!!!!!! I have my outfit hung up, and I will have it pressed for the big show!
I am so lucky!!! I am living a dream.

Be sure to tune into the Today show (Friday your time). I am not sure what time it comes on but it might be before the opening ceremony or in the am. I don’t know.
You will see JD and I and Sally. All really cool.

I am fired up!!!!

Later

Austin

Well its August 7th here in China. JD and I just landed in Beijing (from Qingdao, the sailing venue). We are here to walk in the opening ceremony which is happening tomorrow (8/8/08).

We checked into a small hotel called the Shangyuan Hotel, this is the place I booked months ago for JD’s entire family. All five of his kids are coming, plus two of his wife’s kids and one spouse. The rooms are very small and cramped. It reminds me of a hotel somewhere in a remote part of Europe. The walls are an off white color, well more yellow to be exact, and there is one English channel on the TV. There are two small twin beds jammed up against each corner of the room. Thank goodness for internet!

The funny thing is that the USOC might not let me stay in this hotel with my wife, and JD with his family, because there is a rule that all athletes must stay in the Olympic Village for security reasons. Oh well, time will tell.

Life has been great in Qingdao. We have had four solid days of training on the yellow sea, preparing us for our August 15th start. The boat seems to be going well and the boat speed seems to be there. Let’s see how this will all play out.

Most everyone seems pretty loose around the boat park, but as the racing starts rest assured there will be no friends amongst the competitors.

I will be hanging here in Beijing with Sally until August 12th when we head back to Qingdao. We have hull measurement on the 13th and the practice race is on the 14th. I will have more detailed reports as we get closer to the start of racing and after the opening ceremony tomorrow, which I will surely have memories and hopefully tons of pictures.

Thanks again for following along in this great life adventure.

Later

Austin

JD, Hans and I arrived in China yesterday (Saturday night).

I am getting use to these long haul flights, and it’s really getting easier to travel. I know the Beijing airport like I know Gulfport International. It’s a piece of cake.

I had a really great flight, there were about 150 other US Olympic Athletes on the plane from SFO. The other athletes were part of the women’s volleyball team (I am not a small person, but these gals were each around 6’7” tall and super fit athletes).

The mens wrestling team was also on the plane. Everybody needs to be on the lookout for my buddy Daniel Cormier he is a wrestler in the 211lb weight class. He’s great guy and look for him to whip a few people in a few weeks. The badminton team was also on the plane – my buddy Howard thinks they might win a medal!

But the best part of the trip was at the baggage claim in Beijing when all 150 of us athletes were waiting to collect out bags.

Austin makes rookie Olympian mistake. When we went through team processing in San Jose last week we all got our opening ceremony outfits, all the Polo and Nike clothes this was all fantastic but we also ALL got the same two pieces of luggage. Smart guy that I am, I did not have a name tag on my bag, just the name tag from United Airlines. So, after looking at about 300 pieces of luggage I finally found all my stuff. Note to self next time I will put a neon green piece of duct tape or something to make my bag stand out from the crowd.

But something good came out of the the mistake, in the process of picking up every piece of Nike luggage, I saw some other athletes bags more specifically the USA cycling team!!! Woooo Hooooo I am a huge fan… I spoke with the personal trainer and mechanic (he informed me the guys are arriving later). But nonetheless, I will be able to meet some of my Tour de France Idols!!!!! I am so pumped, I cant wait!

Here in Qingdao life is AWESOME! We are now living in the Olympic Village. I am rooming with my coach Hans Wallen, he is a great guy, tons of fun. He makes me laugh non stop with his accent and best part os he doesn’t snore… Life is great.

After the Games, the village will be turned into a five star Intercontinental Hotel, so as you can imagine its sweet!!! Were on the 15th floor over looking the boat park and the water. We can actually see the Class flag pole from our room and see when they raise and lower the postponement flag. Hansy has been joking that he doesn’t need to leave the room when we race on course A, because with a good set of binos he can coach from his bed.

Today we woke up early around 630 am. Hansy and I headed to the gym here in the hotel, then onto breakfast and the boat park.

We unpacked yet another container and after a bit of boat work we were on the water around 1400. Today we trained with Robert Schidet, Hammish Pepper and Xavier Rohart. Everything is going as planned and we had a great session. Tomorrow more of the same.

Gotta run, our team leader Dean Brenner is about to give me a new hair cut. It’s a bit warm here in China and I am going to run the shaved head look. I am trying to reduce the windage…. I already shaved my legs so now I need to make the top more aero.

I am trying to write update often to keep you all posted.

Later

Austin

Hello everyone.

Well after 26 hours of traveling I finally made it home! It’s good to be home. We left China early because our regatta was over due to the fact that we did not make the medal race (final 10 boats) We finished 12th overall. It was a great learning experience, we learned some valuable lessons that even the best coaching in the world cannot teach you. There is nothing more important in this game than experience, it was very evident over this past few weeks. I look around at the olympic regatta and in our class (star) most every competitor has either been to the olympics before, won a medal and has won a world championship in most cases more than once. Basically we go out and compete with the Tiger Woods of sailing every time we leave the dock, funny thing is that instead of 1 Tiger, there are about 8 teams that are that good. Robert Schedit of Brazil, won the regatta. Robert is new to the star class, he is not new to winning. Prior to sailing the star boat Robert dominated the single handed Laser class, winning 8 world championships, 2 gold medals and 1 silver medal, oh by the way he just won the star world championship last month (and finished 2nd at the star worlds last year) needless to say this guy is not human..

The last day of racing was moving day for JD and I, We were in 9th place overall and with 2 good races left would could move up to 5th. Well on the first race of the day I made a call that sunk the ship. With 3 seconds to go JD and I set up about 3 lengths up from the Pin boat, I saw the Race Committee looking up the line I figured we had another length togo and told JD to go for it, well I was wrong and we were over early and had to gybe out and round the pin boat and star over while the rest of the fleet is racing up the beat to the first mark. The race only got worse from there… We actually caught up at the top mark and rounded 7th, good considering we had to restart. But the downwind was a killer for us, it seemed no matter where we went on the race track it was the wrong way and we lost to the other side, maybe we were just off the pace, still replaying what went wrong in my mind. The second race of the day wasn’t much better and in the end we missed the top ten by 3 points…

Everybody says go into the Olympics and treat it like it’s another regatta. I have news for you people, it’s not like every other regatta. Your half way around the world, in a communist country, people don’t speak your language, worrying about eating the wrong food and getting sidelined with food poisoning Totally out of your normal element, movie cameras, the venue, the police escort bus rides to and from the venue, the heat and humidity, the sitting around waiting for wind, not seeing your family for over a month, all this stuff starts to take its toll mentally. At the end of the day the teams that can get past this and focus on sailing are the teams that will win, period. Robert Schedit rounded most weather marks in 10-12th position he would pick boats up every leg and would have a shot at winning most races, this is how you win regattas, he seems to have the model down better than anyone else right now.

At the end of the day there are 10-12 boats that could win this regatta, its about peaking at the right moment and being comfortable with your surroundings.

Next up for JD and I are the US Olympic Trials in October (3rd-14th) it;s actually very simple you win the trials and you go to the Olympics. It’s not going to be easy but JD and I have consistently beaten every American and every regatta lately. I wanted to thank you guys for keeping up with the Olympic Rat race, I enjoy reading your feedback.

Back to the California for the next month and a half… I will keep everyone posted!

Austin

I hope everyone is doing well!
Here are some pictures of yesterday’s racing. A typical day goes as follows here in China:
7:00am wake up
7:30am check scale (make sure I am under weight or I go to the gym)
9:00am catch bus to venue to make official weigh in (dont eat or drink anything before this 9am weigh in)
9:15am catch taxi back to hotel after weigh in for breakfast
10:00am catch bus back to venue after breakfast
12:00pm Schedule start if there is any wind…. (yesterday we stayed on the dock until 4pm, race 1 started at 5:45pm)
Towed home at 7pm in the dark
Bus back to hotel 7:45pm
Dinner 8:15pm
Bed 9pm…
ground hog day, everyday…...


The best star sailors in the world are here and it has made for very close racing. It was a long day yesterday, waiting for the wind.. We finally got off the dock at 4pm, for a start time of 5:30pm we finished 7th in the race. We are in 9th place overall just a few points from 6th…

We have 3 races scheduled today (wishful thinking) I just read the weather report from Jennifer Lilly (the US sailing teams meteorologist) it looks marginal at best today.. I am hearing rumors that if we get in at least 2 races today that the medal race will be held tomorrow as scheduled… stand by for that.

All in all its been a great experience, the venue is amazing the locals are nice but the sailing is henious…

gotta go catch the bus to weigh in

Austin

Just a little update on what’s happening over here at the Pre-Olympics


Day 1
The first day of racing was suspended due to lack of wind. I will give the R/C credit they kept us on shore! The Tornado class (whom we share the same race course with, at different times) had to sit out on the water most of the day before being sent in for the afternoon.

Day 2 Race 1
Course W2 (4 legs finish downwind)
8kts, huge swells, lots of chop
Yesterday we had 2 good races. The breeze was out of a direction of 160. The tide was Ebbing to the east at about 2.5 kts. Basically you could sail past the R/C boat on port for 200 yards with a minute to go, tack back to starboard and with the current you could time a perfect boat end start. We managed to get off the line and had really good upwind speed we rounded the weather mark in 5th overlapped with Ian Percy and Bart Simpson (GBR) there was about 6 of us that had a nice jump on the fleet and it went back and fourth and we finished the race 6th. Good start to a long wacky regatta!

Race 2
Again race started in a wind direction of 160 and a decreasing breeze of about 6kts. With the left over waves and chop this was going to be an interesting race. We got an average start, Peter Bromby & Lee White of Bermuda did a nice job of shutting us out of a boat start, we were a little late but were able to tack immediately onto starboard tack. We held on a long port tack with about 4 boats going to the right and the fleet going to the left. We again have really good boat speed upwind the left side paid up the first beat but we were able to round the top mark 4th. Again not much changed up the next 2 legs, swaping tacks with Hammish Pepper & Tiny Williams (NZL) and Percy (GBR) by the 2nd upwind leg the 4 of us had a HUGE lead on the others, we must of rounded 30 seconds in front of the others.. Well this is where things get interesting.. Down the last run to the finish, the breeze went really light Percy (GBR) and US stayed on Starboard gybe, well this didn’t pay. The teams that were 700 yards behind us gybed at the top mark (BRA) Robert Schideit was so far behind I couldn’t read his sail numbers just to give you guys and idea how far ahead the top 6 boats were… Well BRA finished the race in 2nd place… USA finished 10th percy finished 12th…..
We have 16 points and today we have 2 more scheduled races. Will be interesting weather team is calling for less wind than yesterday, and 70% chance were going to get rained on out there….
All in all its been a great learning experience here in China training where the Olympics will be in 1 year and sailing with the best guys in the world….. The best part about this deal is our US Olympic Trials will be the exact format. We will be ready!
I will let you guys know what happens after todays 2 races!

Austin