Detroit Olympian Sails To Strong Finish in Rio
Michigan Sailor Bora Gulari talks about Rio’s rough weather, scary moments and getting into a groove.
The Olympic medal race for mixed NACRA 17 sailing was on Tuesday in Rio. One of the sailors — Bora Gulari — is a Detroiter.
His team had a rough start in the Olympics due to Mother Nature and equipment problems. But fighting back in the last day of regular competition, Gulari and his teammate, Louisa Chafee, qualified for the medal race.
Gulari joins Detroit Today to talk about the games and what’s next for him.
“Whenever it seems like we go to a big event it’s not normally like… what you train for,” he tells Detroit Today Host Sandra Svoboda. “We had weather patterns that no one had seen really in the training time we had here… Not warm sunny Rio so much.”
But Gulari says he’s happy he and Chafee were able to get into a groove in the second half of the racing schedule.
“Things were clicking,” Gulari says, noting that his team was outperformed only by the team that went on to win gold in the last couple days of competition.
In the interview, Gulari describes some scary moments during this year’s races, his experience with other American Olympic athletes, and compares sailing in Rio with sailing on the Detroit River.
Will he try for the 2020 Games in Tokyo? Yes. He’s got “the Olympic bug.”
To hear the entire conversation, click on the audio player above.
