From the Archives: The Heat is On
From the Archives: The Heat is On
With a little more than one year to the Atlanta Olympics, the results of the largest Olympic classes event in the U.S. made it clear that the pressure was on the U.S. team to pick up the pace. From our May 1995 issue.
Rumors of record numbers for the 1995 Miami Olympic Classes Regatta had been flying since last May when race organizers announced entry limits for all classes. The world's top Olympic talent doesn't come to the United States often, a fact that made this news even more compelling. Yet Day One of the competition was deceivingly quiet as 31 Solings launched the fleet racing portion for their event a day ahead of the nine other classes. It was not until the morning of Day Two, when 632 athletes donned wet suits, harnesses and hiking pants, that the sheer magnitutde of this competition hit home. Along the shores of Biscayne Bay, 359 sails were raised bearing the country designators of 37 nations, including all the sailing giants of Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand, the recently independent lands of Estonia, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, as well as tiny island nations like Antigua, Bermuda, Jamaica and the Bahamas. License plates from 25 states and five Canadian provinces on tow vehicles ranging from Mom's old station wagon to a U-Haul packed with Lasers to shiny new vans wearing the colors of corporate sponsors told the other half of the story. Read more here.
