As far as preseason training goes, most Georgetown athletes will work hard during the summer from the comfort of their home towns. Some will even decide to stay on campus and spend the summer in D.C. to improve themselves as athletic machines.
Not Andrew Campbell. The senior captain of the men’s sailing team spent a good part of his summer overseas contending in the Laser European Championships and most recently, the Summer World University Games, which took place in Izmir, Turkey. Competing against talented sailors from across the globe, Campbell represented team U.S.A. in the University Games exceptionally well. So well, in fact, that that he beat out Turkish homegrown sailor Kemal Mutlubas on the last day of the regatta to win Team USA their only gold medal.
“It’s great [to have the gold medal],” Campbell told Georgetown Sports Information. “I told myself at the beginning of the event that if I could just be patient and sail my own regatta, just do as well as I can every day and take it one race at a time, that things would work out. I’ve done enough sailing and enough training that it should work out right.
While winning only two races of the 12, Campbell placed in the top five eight other times, allowing him to methodically float by the competition.
“As it turned out, it was just about perfect,” Campbell said. “I sailed the most consistent regatta of anybody and that obviously paid off, so I was pretty happy about it.”
With Campbell now primed to dominate the waters for Georgetown this fall, the team is looking forward to another successful season. The team has plenty of leadership from 15 returning seniors, and preseason NCAA rankings have the coed Hoyas ranked fifth in the nation.
Campbell and the rest of the squad will try and catch their first zephyr during the Riley Cup in Norfolk, Virginia on Sept. 10.
