Olympic Games 1996

Coaches' Picks: Jim Young

DM: Your specialty is the Tornado, who do you see as the favorites and the dark horses in that class?
JY: The Austrian sailors, Hagara and Moser have to be considered the major players. Hagara and Moser have the most training, they won at the Champagne Mumm Olympic Classes Regatta. He seems relaxed and confident. Other top contenders for the Tornado are Australia (Mike Booth and A. Landenberger), Italy (the Prinioli brothers), Germany (the Sach brothers). A dark horse contender here is the team from the Netherlands, Van Teylingen and Dercksen, they've been sailing very fast here.

DM: How about the Finn Class?
JY: There are two leaders here, Austria (Hans Spitzauer) and Italy (Luca Devoti) look good here in practice. Fredrik Loof of Sweden is likely to win a medal, he's ranked first in the world. Dark horses in the are USA (Will Martin) and and France (Philippe Presti). The huge unknown is this class is the spainard, Jose Maria van der Ploeg. He's the defending gold medallist from 1992, but he's been off for a couple of months training by himself. He's had very little contat with rest of world. He could come back really fast or not at all.He's not in the favored or darkhorse columns, he's in one all by himself at this point!

DM: Your pick for the Star Class? JY: I will make a daring prediction and say that it will be between the USA and Denmark. Mark Reynolds does very well under pressure, he's the defending gold medallist, but Haesbeck from Denmark may be the best prepared in terms of training here. Chieffi from Italy will probably pick up a medal here as well. This could be a very close race, there is a lot of talent there.

DM: And for the Solings?
JY: Pretty wide open. Top 15 or so, anyone can do it. Denmark is better at fleet racing than match racing. Hard to call, for some guys are great at fleet racing, not so great in match racing and vice versa. And the fleet racing comes first, sometimes the best match racers don't make it into the match racing finals!

DM: As happened in the US Trials, where Ed Baird, one of the top ranked match racers in the world, didn't make past the fleet racing.
JY: Yes, we could see something like that happen here as well.

DM: Europe dinghy?
JY: Medals will be won by scandinavians, including the scandinavian who now sails for Canada! (Tine Moberg). The spanish girl (Helen Montilla) is an outside shot.

DM: What about the 470 Men?
Great Britain's Merricks is the major player. as long as he doesn't do anything dumb as he did in the worlds, not sailng the last race thinking ihe had it sewn up, and lost! Ukraine has got to be considered a threat in both men and women. Women better chance for a gold medal than the men. But they've been training together and look really good. (Men --Yevhen Braslavets/Ihor Matviyenko, Women -- Ruslana Taran/Olena PakholÕchik

DM: 470 Women's Class?
JY: Very dynamic situation --Spain is a major player. Teresa Zabell is the defending gold medallist, she has to be considered the favorite. Israel (Shani Kedmi/Anat Fabrikant) has a shot. Probably down to Spain and Ukraine, then whole lot of fighting for the third medal.

DM: Mistral Class?
JY: Haven't been following that one too closely.

DM: Thanks for your time -- next few rounds are on me.