Bayport Racing Olympian's Insight on First 2 London Races

The first day of racing for Bayport Olympian Debbie Capozzi was a mixed bag of results, and while her three-person race team lost to Spain and beat Denmark, it's clear she isn't letting the loss impact her expectations of victory to come.

"Those guys [Denmark] are great competitors and we managed to edge them out," said Capozzi, after the race.

Thanks to a daily blog on the US Sailing Team's races, written by Team Leader Dean Brenner, Capozzi's fans are able to keep track of Women's Match Racing and get insight from the 31-year-old second-time Olympian, as well as sailing colleagues Anna Tunnicliffe and Molly O’Bryan Vandemoer.

While Team USA has plenty of Olympic experience, the London Games still bring a case of nerves, said Capozzi.

“Everyone has day one nerves in the Olympics,” said Capozzi. “It was cool to sail out there and see what it all looks like. We were able to watch the first two flights, which was great. Our first race went well. Second race we made an error hitting the mark that we weren’t able to recover from.”

That error in the second race was due to an anchor line being temporarily caught. It stopped Team USA momentarily and gave the Spain racing team enough of a head start to win the race.

According to Brenner's blog, 3,000 spectators attended the first day of racing and it's the first time the sailing competition is a ticketed event in the Olympics. However it is not being televised by NBC.

“It [the crowd] changed the energy,” said Capozzi. “Every time a boat rounded a windward mark they got a cheer from the spectators in the crowd. It’s awesome. It’s great for sailing to see that. We’re really excited to have that for the rest of the week.”

As of today, the second day of racing, Capozzi's team is tied for fourth place. Australia, Spain and Russia, are each 2-0 and tied for first.

In his blog, Brenner notes Team USA has been "working and training for years for these Games, and yesterday’s action was our first real chance to test drive our operations, our Games support, everything we are doing to create a winning atmosphere."

He describes the USA team as "calm and cool," and notes "there are definitely a few things we need to do better as a team, and we’ll work on that starting today. We want everything to be totally smooth and bump-in-the-road free."

In signing off he added "the show has just begun and there is lots of action left."

Today's races for Capozzi's team are against Portugal and Australia.