Sailing through filth in Rio won’t stop Mass. native Stu McNay and other U.S. Olympians from competing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAOocy8V-Nw
American rower Megan Kalmore had one request as she and her fellow members of the U.S. Olympic team prepared to travel to Rio for next month’s Summer Games: Stop talking about the s*** in the water.
Despite the fact that the waters in Rio de Janeiro have been compared to a “toxic stew,” contaminated by raw sewage and whatever hidden secrets the sea might choose to expose, Kalmore — a bronze medalist in quadruple sculls in 2012 at London heading to her third Olympic Games — doesn’t want to hear about the risks.
“What purpose does it serve to dwell on this?” she asked in a recent blog post. “What benefit can we possibly gain from drilling athletes on their position on the water quality in Rio? None. Or nothing good, anyway. What it seems like to me, is that the media is yet-again working really hard to smear the host city, the IOC, and the Olympics as an institution as part of the hype leading in to the Games. In Beijing, people were hyper-focused on air quality. In London, the criticism fell on budget and timeline issues. This year, it’s more of the same and people seem more motivated than ever to portray the impending Rio Games as the biggest-ever disaster that hasn’t happened yet.
“If you are that insecure about where we stand, America, let me be the one to say it. I’ll say it, if it will allay your fears and put some of these issues to rest:
“I will row through sh*** for you, America.”
Sailor Stu McNay, a Massachusetts native who will also be heading to his third Olympic experience in Rio, chuckled at Kalmore’s description of overcoming the water’s downfalls. Yes, he admitted, at certain periods of the tide cycle around the sailing course areas, the smell can be unpleasant because of the physical debris that exists in the water. But it’s not like Team USA is the only country sailing through it.
“It’s the same playing field for everybody,” the 34-year-old McNay said. “The water will not stop us in our athletic performances. That’s what we’re all there for.”
Subtract the poop from the playing field though, and McNay really like the experiences he’s had so far training in Rio for the men’s 470 class race.
“The training has been extremely high quality,” he said. “Rio is a fantastic place to sail. There’s a wide variety of wind conditions, the heat stays current. That’s one of the more interesting places to race because there’s just such a variety of conditions, and such a variety of skills are necessary to perform well there.”
McNay grew up in Brookline and Newton, where he had limited exposure to sailing while attending Roxbury Latin High School. It wasn’t until he attended summer camp at Tabor Academy in Marion that the bug bit him, eventually leading instructors at the school to encourage his parents to enroll him in a learn-to-race program at nearby Beverly Yacht Club. He developed some skills for the 470 dinghy there competing on the Cape Cod youth circuit before heading to Yale University, where he became a two-time All-American.
Now, headed to his third Games as a helmsman, McNay is itching for what he’s missed out on over the last two; McNay and crew member Graham Biehl finished 13th in 2008 at Beijing, 14th in 2012.
“First Olympics, I was really excited to be at the Games,” McNay said. “At the second Olympics, we were more focused on having a good result at the Games. It didn’t really pan out that way but we certainly learned a lot from that experience. This third time, we are in a much better place than we’ve ever been before. Our international results have been as strong as they’ve ever been, and I feel confident and good about any of the decisions that we’ve made leading up to this. Knock on wood, there’s a really good chance that it pays off in the end.”
These will be the first Games during which McNay will compete with Dave Hughes, whom he teamed up with at the end of the 2012 season. Together they won the 470 Europeans Open Championship in 2015, were two-time bronze medalists at the Sailing World Cup in 2014 and ’15, and pulled off a Sailing World Cup Miami title in both 2013 and ’16.
“I feel like we’re on top of our game,” McNay said. “We’ve won some of the practice events down in Rio in the last couple months, so we’re performing well against our competition, by our own personal standard.”
Hughes is headed to the Olympics for the first time as a sailor. He was a coach in 2012, leading the U.S. 49er team of Trevor Moore and Erik Storck to a 15th-place finish in London.
It was just last year that Moore left a sailing center in Miami in a 15-foot inflatable powerboat. The boat was found later that day. Moore was not.
In this Aug. 4, 2012, file photo, United States’ Stuart McNay and Graham Biel, left, competed during the 470 class race at the Summer Olympics in Weymouth and Portland, England. The American sailors with the best chances of medaling in Rio are the women’s 470 crew of Annie Haeger and Briana Provancha; the men’s 470 crew of McNay and David Hughes of Miami; and Laser Radial sailor Paige Railey.
A native of Pomfret, Vt., Moore might be considered the third man in McNay’s dinghy. McNay sailed with him on their first International team together as adolescents in in Spain. After the London Olympics, Moore, McNay, and Hughes all moved into an apartment together in Miami preparing for another run at the Olympics in 2016. It was there that McNay met his future wife, with whom he moved to Providence in 2012.
Moore disappeared just prior to McNay and Hughes’ competition in the 2015 European championships. It ended up being one of their most outstanding performances of the year.
“It was remarkable how Dave was able to keep his mind in a great, competitive place while all this stuff was going on outside,” McNay said. “Even to the standpoint of, he was performing his best as we crossed the finish line, he was crying, and he felt like we had done this for Trevor.”
Moore had, of course, always dreamt of winning an Olympic medal for himself, so McNay feels that these Games could serve as a full circle avenue in that regard.
“A medal here would be the fulfillment of our own dream, and what we know Trevor would have wanted for us or for himself,” McNay said.
“I’m sure our best is good enough, but you never expect to put your perfect game out or for everything to go as well as possible. So, you plan for the ups and downs and be as good as you can on your off days and as good as you can on your on days. It’s a long enough event that people will have things go for them and against them. It will largely be how you respond when things don’t go in your favor. I think that will be the difference between being on the podium and not.”
Even if it takes sailing through s****.
Aly Raisman through the years
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