Trying to catch the lead!

But not without the great flu hitting me the night before racing started.  I was mad, upset, feeling pretty unlucky an just darn frustrated. My racing acted the same way with me in a full suit in warm 75 degree temperatures!..definitely not cool.  But each day I felt better and what made this event a great success is in the 8 races, 5 of them I rounded a mark in the top 5 and 3 of them in the lead!  I ended up second in my best races but it was the first time I really was in the front of the fleet.  I had the world champion, silver medalist, all the world podium finishers behind me and it felt great. I am certainly starting to feel my confidence build at the very front and I can’t wait to race again to finish more races off the same way.

Finishing in second place

Here is my speech to the board at the Annual meeting in Busan , Korea:

Dear  president, vice presidents and council members,

Thank you  for having me at “your table”. I am in in great honor to be joining you.  I promise you the athletes will not  go on strike!  For years I have worked hard as an athlete and a professional to reach the highest success in our sport. Looking back at my  experience is one of the most phenomenal feelings and one that I’d like to share with the future generation of athletes but there were also many difficulties that I faced that the future of our sport shouldn’t face. As the new chairman of the athletes commission: I hope to bring this information directly to you, at this council table and  to gain a mutual understanding on ways to right this ship we now call “isaf” and simplify this organization to the basic goal of any athlete, to win.

So finally, are we winning the hearts and minds of our youth?
Are we really winning rewards for the presentation to the media?
Are we winning awards for the 5 star hotels we meet at each year or for the gold medals that the athletes earn so bravely?
Are we winning the IOC our only major funding source?

And before you win me and the rest of the athletes, I expect this organization to work equally as hard. And with the same winning attitude.  We want change and want to be a part of that change.

Last year I said that the strategy of this organization was not serving in the best interest of the athletes, and after serving on the athletes commission and olympic commission since then I am now enthralled with what strategy is forming.

I hope to work with each of you over the next 4 years on our long term success. I truly believe my future and all the athletes I represent are in your hands.

Thank you

Now I will take a rest and reflect on this past season. I have reached my highest goal this season and have far outpaced any previous best of mine.  I feel satisfied albeit short-lived as my main focus is still eyeing the Olympic games and of course the competition never rests!  My performance this year has qualified me for the top position in the 2010 US National Sailing Team Alphagraphics for the 7th year now running.  My world cup ranking is now in the top 15 and have nearly cut in half my best performances of 2008.  What a relief that this season has been completed and to have such satisfaction.

I took many more notes this season than I ever had in the past, and now I will reflect and review the plusses and minuses, and make new goals and priorities so that next season will be further improved. The campaign has so many requirements, from funding and logistics to race day ready.  I know with good organization and continuing to build a strong team behind me both on and off the water I will medal.  I want to thank you all that have cheered me on this season, gave to me so much last season that enabled me to continue competing deep into the recession this past year.  I want to thank Christopher Sieber my coach

for yelling at my stubbornness and delighting in the wins we’ve had this season. The US Sailing Team for providing such needed support. But most importantly thank you for your support this past Olympic year in 2008, I have spent every last dime you have given me and that I had saved for the 2009 season.  What a ride it has been!

On a side note, I’ve been re-elected for the International sailing federations Athletes Commission, which represents all the athletes to the governing body.  In that meeting which just concluded I was elected the chairman, so that is a great honor and will enjoy fulfilling my duties there to the Executive team.

This season was a significant one for me personally and now I can finally rest. (for a few days!!) I’ll leave it all on the water in England at the Olympics in less than 3 years time.  Let’s stay in touch and I hope to see everyone very soon at home in the USA!

This is the first time for me at the new Olympic venue for Sailing, and as I settle down onto the area I could immediately feel the excitement of the upcoming Olympic Games (helicopters and all).  No pink Panther though (I did look).  It is here I will spend a majority of my next 3 years of preparation.  The day after the Beijing Olympics my quest for 2012 started and that Olympics left me with some very unsettled and unfinished business to contend with for London.  So here I am, eyes focused on the new venue and most importantly the World Championships.  This is the first World Championships in my career that I have focused a majority of my season’s preparation, and coincides with a shift of how the US Olympic Team will be qualified at an upcoming worlds instead of a national trials.

Since arriving here there has been a relentless wind, blowing to over 30 knots each day, and what a stark contrast to the super hot and no wind venue of the last Olympics.  They say it can blow anything here, and so I am waiting for what else it can do but rain and blow like stink.  But I’d rather be planning along at 30 mph plus squinting in the rain on my trusty new Olympic Board than fanning the sail relentlessly through seaweed and the Chinese jungle gym.  Oh did I mention they speak English here?  What a pleasant place to just cruise the street and say hello to random strangers without feeling like a complete oddball tourist.

My sails and boards are in proper tune and today I finished putting on the 3’ by 4’ American flag on my sail, noticing how proud I am to be sailing for our country.  More proud to go out there and sail my heart out the next week and set a new personal best for a Worlds and new Olympic venue.  Time to start to finish this business!  It is tomorrow we get some progress report for that Olympic Medal I’ve been training so hard for.  So without anything more cheeky, join me this week for the world Championships!!  Thanks for all your support and special thanks to Susan and Pat Henry and the US Sailing Team Alpha Graphics for their continued support this year.  Let’s get them! I can’t wait.  I am so pumped.

Check out www.rsxclass.com for results and my website for personal updates!

I know, I know it’s been a while. Let me first apologize for not providing you with any more recent updates since last year. But I am finally back in the USA! I just left Kiel, Germany where I had a personal best and a top ten performance at the most recent world cup event. It is now that I am finally finding myself again since the Olympic Games last summer. Wow what an experience! I was in the Beijing Olympics, I made the dream of my life come true, but it also came with some personal changes that are hard to swallow. After investing so much time, energy and money into a such a monumental goal, I never thought of anything else but getting there and winning. I didn’t go to the Olympics to participate..I went to win. But as all obstacles that come your way, you can either let them defeat you, or you can find the resolve to finish what you started. So I found new conviction for London Olympics, with a much more mature and determined Ben, that will be as well prepared on the water as off. The countless hours of training, the endless travels, the homes that always are away from home. Bring it on. I’ve been away from home the last 3 months straight, the longest trip to Europe I’ve ever done, and sometimes it just sucks sometimes when the stores are closed, no friends are around and you don’t speak the language. But Olympic medals don’t grow on trees, and sacrifices are everywhere. This season has been steady positive progress and I am grateful to have such solid progress forward.Thankfully, we raised enough money last year that it’s kept me going well into 2009, this has helped me greatly with jump starting the 2012 campaign (and beating through the recession).Thanks again for all your support. I couldn’t be doing this without what support you have given to me. Inge, Bob, Kim, Susan, Mr. Hough, Joe…thank you so much!

I am excited to continue to share my Olympic stories, this coming week in Pensacola I will be speaking to hundreds of kids at the Junior Olympic Festival sponsored by Subway. Well I am not Jared (the success story for subway) but I can say I will have a great time discussing the ups and downs of the Olympic Games. If your around stop in, or watch some of the action on ABC news!

So in review of 2009 so far-

I’ve won the US National Ranking again for the 6^th time in the Miami World Cup event this past January. I set a personal best performance at that event and had lot’s of potential to improve even more considering I hadn’t sailed with fast people much before the event. For February and March I rested more than anything, but I did go to the Olympic Training center in Chula Vista California. I was tested in max strength, aerobic capacity etc. Good news was that I was the fittest guy on the US Sailing team Alpha Graphics, better news is I knew I wasn’t fit. I ate lunch with Michael Phelps, which was pretty cool, he just wanted to be treated like everyone else as a normal Joe. On the way back from California I stopped in to see my sister…I am Officially Uncle Ben. The question is what kind of doctor the “little dude” as I call him will be as both parents are just that, doctors. During March I was on my patent pending “supermodel diet” which consists of fun foods and not a lot of anything else. I wanted to lose ten pounds for the start of the season, so I ended up losing that ten pounds and ready to build up the rest of the season.

It’s a new quadrennial, and I am doing a much more scientific approach to this 4 year campaign (supermodel diet withstanding). I am working with a trainer in the US Olympic Training center and keeping steady notes and diaries of my training regime. I also needed to hire the right coach, after doing some searching I ended up deciding on Christoph Sieber, an Austrian who won gold in Sydney, who not only provides a splendid example of how to win, but mentally he is helping me isolate the right mindset for top performance. I am thankful to US Sailing Team Alphagraphics for keeping his support steady! Additionally I have a heart rate monitor and GPS stuck to me all the time while training and racing so I have more accurate feedback of exactly what I am doing, where I am going, and how fast I am getting there.

The last race of the gold fleet finals in Spain was a sign of things to come. I hit the start just right, led to the left side. Each transition was perfectly in sync with each shift. I rounded in 3rd, and realized finally, I’m back. But it’s why I race, when your on the right shift, there is no better shift.Now I wouldn’t go too far to tell you to be on the right shift in life…but I am sure you can relate. We create our own luck. We create our own energy and success and we have to be there to make it happen. I’d rather go out, knowing I gave It everything I had, than to spend the rest of my life wondering. That’s the way I was made as a person and why I can’t wait for the next regatta to show exactly that. I am sure you experience the same pride, feeling of the work you do. To strive for being better at each day, and hopefully you don’t do it for the money, you do it, because that’s what makes you tick as a person, that lets you wake up in the morning hungry and excited for the day. Well my friends, I couldn’t be more excited about this day, and the rest of the year, and in turn I hope to become the very best sailor and competitor the US has ever had competed for them in the Sailboard class. Did I tell you my feet hurt from standing so long on the board? J

I have to give special thanks for the German team for letting me stay and train with them in Kiel the last few months. I have had great sessions that have increased both my fitness and sailing tremendously. Kiel is notorious for bringing cold and rainy conditions, which is a huge departure from Florida sailing. Kiel is roughly the same longitude as where the Olympics will be, so I wanted to be based in northern Europe and work on my weaknesses in that kind of environment. The saying that even on your bad days you have to perform well was an understatement. One of the only days of racing at the last world cup my boom was cracking in half before the first start of the day, needless to say it ripped apart at the end of the second race..just long enough to keep me in the top ten. That’s lucky sailing!

Remember the goal this next campaign is to medal in London. I don’t want to start counting countries early but I have been top 10-15 countries in the last major world cup events which is a big improvement over the past campaign’s Olympic performance and look forward to getting these up even further. Sometimes I am frustrated and sometimes I am surprised at how well I am doing.But I do know that progress takes time to sink in fully, I am investing now for 3 years ahead, and I promise you all I won’t let up. I have to peak this august in England, where our worlds will be taking place at the Olympic venue. My game now turns to my equipment and lot’s of testing so that I have the edge at the worlds. This is the event of the year for me, it’s where I find out what I need to do to medal in 2012, and I look forward to showing that potential this year. Let’s go get them!!!!

So thanks again for all your love and support. I haven’t forgotten about any one of you. I hope to catch up soon while I am finally back home.

Hope is not a strategy! But you can’t dream without hope! I am somewhere in the middle!

Much Love,

Ben Barger

Well here I am in Palma de Mallorca, Spain. I just finished the first world cup event of the season in Europe, and couldn’t be more happy to be competing again this year. The event was a mixed bag, some

personal best days and some bad others. But most importantly it’s my first event back in Europe after a long break this win

ter. Well, it was a kind of break, I have been all over the place.First stop this year was Miami, and a World Cup Event. It was important that there, I qualified for the National Team again and in turn receive funding, support and feedback. I ended having a personal best at that event and winning the National side again for the sixth time, but it’s not ever easy and a relief things have been going so well. After the world cup event I made it to the Olympic Tranining Center inChula Vista California, where I and other members of the team got tested, poked and simply just made hurt. I was in my base and recovery part of the season, I needed a break from training and from feburary to end of March and I did just that, rested. So the scores were good but no were near where I know they can be by the peak of the season.The team plans of visiting the trainng center again in October so I’ll get to see how the numbers add up! On the way back from California I stopped in to see my sister…I am Officially Uncle Ben. The question is what kind of doctor the “little dude” as I call him will be as both parents are just that, doctors.

Check out the Palma pictures:

http://www.benbarger.com/ben/palma09/index.html

The Olympics is an experience like no other. The time after is very special, one that I will never forget, lot’s of attention lot’s of questions and things that are good and bad for you. But what I enjoyed the most was just the fact of being able to complete part one of the dream by going to the games. But there is more to racing than just training, it’s the people your with when you do it. The reason I’ve done this year, is because of your generous support last year. Having prepared for tough times ahead, we are still able to do the string events

this year. So thank you again for cheering me on for so long, without you I couldn’t have done it and this yea

r is very special for me. It’s a new quadrennial, and I am doing a much more scientific approach to this 4 year campaign. First thing was to hire the right coach, after doing some shopping I ended up deciding on Christoph Sieber, an Austrian who won gold in Sydney, who not only provides a splendid example of how to win, but mentally he is helping me isolate the right mindset for top performance. Additionally I have a heart rate monitor and GPS stuck to me all the time while training and racing so I have more accurate feedback of exactly what I am doing where I am going, and how fast I am getting there. Yesterday, the last race of the regatta was the signs of things to come more often. Hit the start just right, led to the right side. Each transition was perfectly in sync with each shift. I rounded in 4^th, and realized finally, I’m back. But it’s why I race, when your on the right shift, there is no better shift. Now I wouldn’t go too far to tell you to be on the right shift in life…but I am sure you can relate. We create our own luck. We create our own energy and success and we have to be there to make it happen. I’d rather go out, knowing I gave It

everything I had, than to spend the rest of my life wondering. That’s the way I was made as a person and why I can’t wait for the next regatta to show exactly that. I am sure you experience the same pride, feeling of the work you do.To strive for being better at each day, and hopefully you don’t do it for the money, you do it, because that’s what makes you tick as a person, that lets you wake up in the morning hungry and excited for the day. Well my friends, I couldn’t be more excited about this day, and the rest of the year, and in turn I hope to become the very best sailor and competitor the US has ever had competed for them in the Sailboard class.

So as we start this season, I remind everybody to, “bring it on”

Favorite quotes of the regatta:

“Where talking scorched earth here.”

Tom cruise in tropic Thunder

Thank you again, all of you, for giving me the ability to reach my dreams. One more time to London, this time for a medal.

Yours,

Ben Barger

Having just arrived back from Madrid, where the annual conference was held for the international sailing organization, I am excited to announce my campaign for the 2012 Olympics has officially begun!!  The equipment for my sailing class was a hot topic and I did my best as a member of the athletes commission to promote that choice as well as push for some governance changes.   I also had met with the king and queen of Greece and was delighted to sit with them at the same dinner table for the awards ceremony.  Unfortunately the queen didn’t have any daughters! And of course I asked!

As with anything in life change is met by much resistance,  but change can be for the better, as long as you make use of every change and opportunity that comes your way.   I went through all the options in front of me. I took out my notebook and listed all the goods, bads, and uglys that I had done in the past four years.  I then decided there is nothing in my life that could quite compare to competing at the Olympic games again.   If I could be there one more time, I’d do it differently, and I think I could win with proper preparation this next time around. The reality is I’ve found renewed energy for competition, something found deep inside my heart. I have not ever felt so motivated to compete again.   The reception since the Olympic Games has been a heartwarming delight and to share with schools and organizations has inspired me as well to continue competing. I’ve heard plenty of “you must be so proud to have just been there”, and I was, but I left empty handed.  Deep inside of me I want to win, and now in my new circumstances, I can do just that unequivocally.

I live for the upcoming days, and will share with you all of my thoughts and ups and downs along the way.  BenBarger.com is being completely redone and will be much more active with what matters the most, motivation and spirit.  The changes I needed to make; part personal and part competitively have fallen into place and I have now made a new plan to improve on the biggest areas needed to win. My time, my team and increased focus. So no law school right now, no jobs in management, I turned off my jobs in consulting, and am going for it all the way.  I won’t let this opportunity slip by, I have to seize it and now I know I can. Yes, I am smiling right now!

There is sometimes never an argument with your gut feeling, and for me that gives me great certainty in continuing hard into 2009.  I hope to emerge as a player that is in serious medal contention, and nothing less.  We’ll be in touch shortly, I am after a win at the first world cup event at the Miami championships in January.  Training partners are arriving in a week, and I will not let up until I have finished this with all I have left in my heart. Thank you for cheering me on so loudly and counseling me through the losses as well as the wins.  It’s time to make a Gold happen. Until soon, don’t give up and make some history! With much love!

Ben Barger

P.S. Happy Thanksgiving!