PORTSMOUTH, R.I. – US SAILING, the national governing body for the sport, has selected eight athletes as Sailing’s 2007 U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) Athletes of the Year for outstanding performance and achievement. Sonar sailors Rick Doerr (Clifton, N.J.), Tim Angle (Marblehead, Mass.), and Bill Donohue (Brick, N.J.) have been named the Paralympians of the Year. Laser sailor Andrew Campbell (San Diego, Calif.) and Laser Radial sailor Anna Tunnicliffe (Plantation, Fla.) are SportsMan and SportsWoman of the Year; Yngling sailors Sally Barkow (Nashotah, Wisc.), and Debbie Capozzi (Bayport, N.Y.) and Carrie Howe (Grosse Pointe, Mich.) have captured the Team of the Year category;  

 

These U.S. sailors have proven to be dominant forces in their respective one-design fleets in 2007, in both U.S. and international arenas. US SAILING has nominated these sailors to the USOC for consideration for the overall Athletes of the Year awards; each Olympic sport's national governing body selects their outstanding athletes for consideration for this national distinction. The overall winners of the USOC Athletes of the Year awards will be announced in January 2008.

 

Paralympians of the Year: Rick Doerr, Tim Angle, Bill Donohue
Sonar racers Rick Doerr, Tim Angle, and Bill Donohue opened the 2007 season with a top performance at the 2007 US SAILING Rolex Miami OCR. In a tough international fleet, they placed second to capture a silver medal: they missed out on first place by a slim one-point margin to set the tone for a year of top performances. By September, they were in Rochester (N.Y.) to face a Sonar field of 27 teams from 16 different nations at the International Foundation for Disabled Sailing World Championship. At that regatta they peaked to capture the World Championship, which took place on the eve of the U.S. Paralympic Team Trials – Sailing. In October, they won the U.S. Paralympic Team Trials - Sailing in Newport (R.I.), in a hard-fought battle that earns them the right to represent the United States at the 2008 Paralympic Games in China. In 2006, Doerr was named the USOC Paralympic Athlete of the Year for sailing; this year, his teammates join him in this distinction. Doerr has been a member of the US Disabled Sailing Team (USDST), which includes the top-ranked sailors in each of the Paralympic classes, since 2001; in the past seven years, Angle had been named to the team six times. The entire team of Doerr, Angle, and Donohue were on the USDST in 2006 and 2007.

 

About US SAILING
The United States Sailing Association (US SAILING) is the national governing body for sailing. Founded in 1897 and headquartered in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, the organization provides leadership for the sport of sailing in the United States. US SAILING offers training and education programs for instructors and race officials, supports a wide range of sailing organizations and communities, issues offshore rating certificates, and provides administration and oversight of competitive sailing across the country, including National Championships and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Sailing Teams. For more information, please visit http://www.ussailing.org/.