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Local SportsBarkow Sailing Away to BeijingLocal Sailor Will Make Olympic DebutBy Rick Rietbrock
Meet Sally Barkow, an Olympic sailor from Nashotah in Waukesha county.
"I grew up sailing here on pine lake," says Sally. "My parents were very involved in, you know, developing youth programs and things like that."
"She had 3 brothers who she was chasing around the course and then they were chasing her around the course," says her father Dick Barkow.
Sally went on to win awards sailing at Old Dominion University. Now she's set to compete in her first Olympics.
"It's so much fun to be out there competing against the world's best and seeing how we can do time after time," she says.
She and her crew might do very well. They're the team to stay together the longest and have been racing together for six years now.
They train year round and have been to china several times already.
"We just came back from a 30 day training session there getting up to speed remembering currents and the winds," says Barkow. "Everything that happens that's very different there."
China has a well-publicized algae problem but sally isn't worried.
"They've done a really good job cleaning it up." she says. "They've basically put up barriers and hired over 10,000 people to be cleaning it up."
Back in Nashotah, the Olympic rings fly proudly above her parents' dock. She's proud to represent Wisconsin.
"Everybody's saying congratulations we're watching you on T.V. We're watching you on the internet, that's awesome," she says. "That support, you know that fan club is just what it's about."
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