Sports

Shelter Island's Clark Finishes Ninth in Medal Race

U.S. sailing team misses the medal with a ninth-place finish after a long road to make it to the Olympics.

They made it to the medal race but didn't make the medal.

and sailing partner Sarah Lihan of Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. finished ninth in Friday morning's medal race in the women's competition in Weymouth, U.K.

After the , Clark and Lihan were ranked ninth out of 20 teams, which brought them to the medal race. They ended their Olympic run with a net total of 98 points, ahead of Spain and behind the team from Germany.

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Jo Aleh and Oliva Powrie of New Zealand got the gold medal, Hannah Mills and Saskia Clark of Great Britain scored the silver, and Lisa Westerhof and Lobke Berkout of the Netherlands took home the bronze in this year's women's 470.

The competition format awards points based on the athletes' finishes, with first place getting one point, second place getting two points, and so on. The best and worst scores are discarded at the end of the preliminary round, and point totals from the medal race results are doubled.

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Clark and Lihan had seven places in the top 10 spots during the preliminary races, including third place finishes in the second and seventh races.

Wednesday night, after Clark and Lihan had made it to the medal race with a 17th and ninth-place finish, Clark's husband wrote Patch an email describing the mood overseas.

"Things are sullen," he said. "It doesn't appear any U.S. sailors will medal — mathematically a medal really isn't possible, but making the medal race is wonderful. U.S. sailing also has an awesome team on site of support. Amanda stays in the village, but we got a pizza tonight and just recapped the week and talked about random things to stay focused.

"I'm super proud of her making it to the top half and entering the final race. She should be super happy. Medaling was really the ultimate goal, but these countries brought game. The Brits have been great, awesome and helpful."

View the results of the top 10 finishers below.

-------------

Fleet overall after Medal Race (from nbcolympics.com)

RkNOCRacePoints
12345678910MTOTNet 1 2 6 2 5 10 4 1 1 2 18 2 53 35 + ALEH J
  • PositionSkipper
POWRIE O
  • PositionCrew
2 6 1 4 6 1 6 5 2 8 2 18 59 51 + CLARK S
  • PositionSkipper
MILLS H
  • PositionCrew
3 1 8 6 4 2 18 4 3 20 6 12 84 64 + BERKHOUT L
  • PositionSkipper
WESTERHOF L
  • PositionCrew
4 10 17 1 8 12 3 7 6 3 5 10 82 65 + LECOINTRE C
  • PositionSkipper
GERON M
  • PositionCrew
5 8 10 18 2 3 1 16 16 6 7 4 91 73 + MICOL G
  • PositionSkipper
CONTI G
  • PositionCrew
6 11 5 14 1 6 10 10 9 5 4 14 89 75 + BARBACHAN A
  • PositionSkipper
OLIVEIRA F
  • PositionCrew
7 14 7 3 21DSQ 9 7 9 13 4 1 16 104 83 + STOWELL B
  • PositionSkipper
RECHICHI E
  • PositionCrew
8 19 2 7 13 15 5 6 5 14 11 6 103 84 + BELCHER F
  • PositionSkipper
KADELBACH K
  • PositionCrew
9 7 3 5 7 19 20 3 8 17 9 20 118 98 + S. LIHAN
  • PositionSkipper
A. CLARK
  • PositionCrew
10 15 14 8 16 13 8 11 4 7 13 8 117 101 +


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