Wadlow, Spaulding won't sail into final

By KEVIN TRESOLINI

Gannett News Service

ATHENS, Greece - A first-place finish was little consolation for Tim Wadlow and Peter Spaulding on the afternoon their Olympic medal dreams washed away on the Saronic Gulf Tuesday.

The U.S. sailors, competing in the two-man dinghy 49er class, are in fourth place heading into Thursday's finale in the 16-race series. Despite winning Tuesday's 15th leg at the Olympic Sailing Centre, they cannot mathematically reach the top three in the point system.

Teams from Spain, the Ukraine and Great Britain assured themselves of medals with their performances in Tuesday's three races. When Wadlow and Spaulding finished 10th and 11th in the day's first two races, not even a win in the third could salvage their medal hopes.

"It's sort of bittersweet," said Wadlow, the 30-year-old skipper. "We won the last race, but we knew that the guys we needed to be ahead of were all close behind. So we had a pretty good idea we were out of the medals even though we were winning the race.

"It's also sort of the end of a dream," he added, before being overcome with emotion.

Boyhood chums in Fair Haven, N.J., where they swam on the Surf Riders swim team, Wadlow and Spaulding, 28, became reacquainted during their college days in Boston. Wadlow, who lives in San Diego, and Spaulding, a Miami resident, have only been sailing together in the 49er class for four years.

The Olympics resulted in a so-close-but-so-far feeling for Spaulding, a product of the Shrewsbury Sailing and Yacht Club in Oceanport, N.J.

"We sailed an excellent regatta," he said. "We've progressed in our sailing very significantly in the last three years. The (others in the) top 10 here have been in the Olympics before, at least once, and have all sailed the boat twice as long as we have. So we're satisfied to do well. We've been in the hunt for the medals the entire regatta.''

There are 19 teams in the Olympic competition. The 49er class was added to Olympic sailing for the 2000 Games in Sydney, where Jonathan and Charlie McKee from the U.S. were bronze medalists.

"When Pete and I started sailing together we'd both been pretty accomplished sailors," Wadlow said. "When we got into the 49er, it was like learning how to sail all over again. Twelve knots we were flipping over. That's when the McKees were sailing. We'd go sail against them and they'd be laps ahead of us.

"But the boats are also rewarding to sail because they're so hard to sail. When they're sailed right, it's a really cool feeling."

Wadlow was 1997 College Sailor of the Year as a Boston University senior. Spaulding was an All-American at rival Boston College. Their only previous first-place finish in the Olympic series had been in the ninth race Friday. They have also been third twice.

"It's tough," said Wadlow, a mechanical engineering consultant who is getting married next month. "You make a lot of sacrifices just to go to the Olympics. I don't know if we'll sail again or not. I think we've shown we can compete at the highest level. Most of the guys who beat us have been at it for eight years. This is year four for us. We've been closing the gap on them all four years. We just didn't close it quite enough."