|
 |   |
EVENTS Fantasy Central Inside Game Video Plus Statitudes Your Turn Message Boards Email Newsletters Golf Guide Cities 
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE
|  |
Gold eludes McKees The American brothers still have shot at medalPosted: Saturday September 23, 2000 12:00 AMUpdated: Tuesday November 14, 2000 11:30 AM
SYDNEY, Australia (CNNSI.com) -- Finland's Thomas Johanson and Jyrki Jarvi locked up the gold medal in the 49er class on Saturday with one race to sail. Brother Jonathan and Charlie McKees seemed sure to contend right through the 16th and final fleet race in the Olympic debut of the winged skiff. But they didn't play the wind shifts nearly as well as Finland's duo. The Finns pumped their fists as they zipped across the finish line in second place in the 15th fleet race, knowing they'd clinched. They were third and first in the day's other two races, their best day in a consistent series. Overall, they had eight top-three finishes. The McKees, meanwhile, had their worst day of the regatta, with finishes of seventh, sixth and 11th. The other two medals will be decided in Monday's final race. The McKees, both former Olympic medalists, are in contention with Britain and Spain. "On the one hand we're happy just to be here in contention for any of the medals," said skipper Jonathan McKee. "Our goal coming in was if we could fight it out for the medals, we'd be pretty happy. We sailed so well early on that we put ourselves in a strong position and today just wasn't our day, so that hurts a little bit."
"It was a little trickier and a little more random out there today," McKee said. "The Finnish guys just handled it amazingly. They were brilliant at every turn." Johanson and Jyrki showed flawless tactics. "It's a dropoff game," Johanson said. "Some guys make mistakes, and the next day they're not fighting for medals." The 49er, a high-performance, winged skiff, is making its Olympic debut. It was designed along the lines of the popular Sydney 18-footer. Jonathan McKee, 40, won a gold in the Flying Dutchman in 1984. Charlie McKee, 38, won the bronze in the 470 in 1988. The fluky winds brought mixed results for two Americans sailing their first races. Star skipper Mark Reynolds and Finn skipper Russ Silvestri each had a third-place finish and a bad race in the winds and choppy seas on the Pacific Ocean. Silvestri, in his first Olympics, was eighth overall in the 25-boat Finn fleet. Reynolds, in his fourth straight games, was 10th in the 16-boat Star fleet. Silvestri, of Tiburon, Calif., got his third place in the first fleet race, then finished 18th. He led at the first mark of the first race. "It's taken me 16 years to get to the Olympics, and getting to the first mark first in the first race, that was pretty exciting," Silvestri said. "I was getting all teary-eyed. My Olympic moment," he joked. "I was amazed how relaxed and not stressed I was." Reynolds, of San Diego, finished 14 in the first race, then recovered from a poor start in the second race for his third place. "It was tough, like we expected," said Reynolds, 44, who won the gold medal in 1992 and the silver in 1988. He and his crewman, 46-year-old Magnus Liljedahl of Miami, are reigning world champions. In the first race, Reynolds headed out to the right side at the start, which proved to be the wrong move because the wind was stronger on the left side. Plus, he said they went the wrong way sailing downwind all three times. In the second race, they gained from shifts on the windward first leg. The breeze topped out at about 8 knots and was about 5-6 at the finish, when the boats literally creaked to the line in the first race. The Stars and Finns will sail 11 races. Europe skipper Courtenay Becker Dey of The Dalles, Ore., the 1996 bronze medalist, was 16th overall after finishing 14th and 19th. Laser skipper John Myrdal of Kailua, Hawaii, slipped to 19th. He was disqualified in the fifth race for being over the line early, then was second in the next race. Australia's Darren Bundock and John Forbes clinched the silver medal in the Tornado class, a day after Austria's Roman Hagara and Hans Peter Steinacher clinched the gold. The American crew, John Lovell of New Orleans and Charlie Ogletree of Newport Beach, Calif., have no shot at the bronze. They won Saturday's 10th fleet race, but were disqualified following a protest hearing Saturday night. The jury ruled that the Americans failed to give New Zealand room to pass a mark. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
|
