Surprise showing in Largs

Beijing Gold medallist Anna Tunnicliffe tells us about her brief return to the Laser Radial

One of the surprise entries to the Laser Radial Worlds starting in Largs, Scotland at the end of this week, was the Beijing Gold medallist, Anna Tunnicliffe. Last summer, Tunnicliffe made the move from the Radial into Women’s Match Racing where she has already managed to overhaul her US match racing competitors, including Genevieve Tulloch and Sally Barkow to stand sixth in the current ISAF rankings. To date this season she won the Women’s Match Racing at the Rolex Miami OCR, finished a lowly ninth at Princess Sofia in Palma, but since then has never been off the podium, including a win at the Women’s Grade 1 event in Calpe.

So having left the Radial - why is she in Largs? “I decided that I was going to do it back in February,” Tunnicliffe told TheDailySail. “I qualified for the spot, because it was fun and there is nothing in the match race schedule at that time. I get to see my friends again and I really enjoy sailing the boat - it is good and physical.”

Tunnicliffe, 27, lives in Fort Lauderdale, Florida (she is married to Laser turned Moth sailor Brad Funk) so Largs is something of a departure, climate-wise. “It is not raining right now. Yesterday was pretty miserable. We went out sailing, it was really windy and on and off rain. It was okay. It is supposed to be windy until the regatta start then it is supposed to be lighter, unfortunately.”

Having stepped out of the Radial almost a year ago, Tunnicliffe did compete at the North American Laser Radial Women's Championship in February, which she won. But she arrived in Largs in good time to get some training in. “I have been sailing here for five or six days already. My goal is to have fun. I’d like to do well, but I haven’t been in the class for a while so I don’t know where I am realistically going to be at. I am going well in training, so hopefully I’ll have a good regatta.”

So a professional Olympic sailor, competing in an Olympic class regatta...for fun. Not something that happens often, but a situation one can imagine that bring out the best in someone. “It is nice not having the pressure on me, for sure. I’m sure I’ll put enough pressure on myself when I am sailing. We’ll see how it goes. I’ve never sailed a regatta where I haven’t had pressure on me.”

However this is possibly one of the secrets to Tunnicliffe’s success. She is not locked into her one sailing discipline or even one sport. For, perhaps more than her peers, she an all-round sportswoman – in addition to sailing, she particularly likes running and triathlons.

While technically not part of the US Sailing Laser Radial team any longer, Tunnicliffe has been training with the US squad in Largs, including her arch-rival for the spot at the 2008 Olympiad, Paige Railey. “We have done three or four days of good solid sailing with each other, getting each other up to speed. Paige and I have moved past our differences and are now moving towards her winning a gold medal in London. Whatever I can do to help here I’ll do.”

Another reason Tunnicliffe is in Largs is that there is an unnaturally large gap in the Women’s Match Racing calendar between now and the next Olympic classes event – Skandia Sail For Gold over 9-14 August. At present Tunnicliffe is waiting to hear whether she will be competing there as she didn’t win the qualifier for it. However assuming there are not enough nations to fill the number of spots available then the bigger teams (in order of the Sailing World Cup rankings) can field a second team and with the US holding second place at the moment, Tunnicliffe reckons her chances of being in Weymouth in August are good.

So how has she found the often difficult transition from singlehanded sailor to crewed? “Certain parts are a little bit difficult, but I have two really fantastic crew. One sailed bow on the Yngling in the last quad and my middle molly is a 470 crew. So we all have different backgrounds and what each of us brings makes us work really well together. And we are all pretty good friends as well - we are not afraid to let out what is bothering us. We realise that is what builds a team. From the get-go we laid down the ground rules. It is not nearly as difficult as I thought it would be.”

Another change this time around has been within how their national authority, US Sailing, are approaching their Olympic sailing campaign for 2012. Realising the game has moved on, they are now mimicking the techniques of some of the top European countries. “It is definitely different,” Tunnicliffe agrees. “I think what they are doing is really good and it will be good in the long run. We have a much stronger development team coming up now, that is pushing the actual squad. It is good for the long term plan of our program and it is building more of a team dynamic, in making us work together and be a team out on the water, whereas last time I had my coach, so and so had their coach and maybe we’d say ‘hi’ at a regatta [to another US team]. Now it is ‘this is the team coach, you guys will sail together, you will use this coach...’ I think overall it is bringing the whole US team level up.”

A problem achieving this team approach within the States is that it is such a vast country that it is hard to find one place where everyone can gather for training. According to Tunnicliffe they sit down and “negotiate”. Among the Women’s Match Racers typically they spend the winter months in Florida while in the summer they move up to two match race centres on Lake Michigan.

Less well known about Tunnicliffe is that she is British born, originating from Doncaster in Yorkshire, and her first sailing experiences were in an Optimist near Blyth, Northumberland. “I sailed on the east coast (of England) when I was a kid in Optimists and a little at Rutland Water,” she says. “I can remember that sailing in the UK when I was a kid was cold. I moved at 12 to Ohio and sailed all the time. I was not particularly fond of sailing when I sailed in England. It was not really until I moved to America that I really learned to love the sport. If I had stayed in the UK then there is every chance I would not have stayed with it and found a different sport.”

It was only really when her family emigrated to Perrysburg in North West Ohio and while at college she started sailing on Lake Michigan that the competitive sailing bug really bit. After a prolific record of successes in different sailing classes she entered the US trials for the 2004 Olympics in the Europe singlehander. Since then she has never looked back.

While she has won Olympic Gold, Tunnicliffe’s best results in Laser Radial World Championships have been two third places. It would be ironic, now she is out of the class, if she won this year – but with her impressive track record you certainly wouldn’t bet against her.