Most days the New York Times runs a piece called "This Day in Sports" recalling the top sports stories, at least from an American perspective, of the past 100 or so years.

Today's NYT top story is about the African-American athlete, Jesse Owens, "who arrived on the national stage in a collegiate track meet by breaking a sprint record that had stood for seven years. From this moment on, the 21-year-old Owens dominated track and field, his career reaching its zenith when he won four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics (see Aug. 4). Those performances were historically significant because he disproved on the field Hitler's doctrine of Aryan supremacy."

Interestingly, the NYT says today's "runner-up" story is about the America's Cup and, to a degree, is also about equal opportunity -- in this case for women:

1994: Bill Koch, who successfully defended the America's Cup in 1992, announced that the first all-female crew in the history of the competition would sail his yacht, America 3, in the defender trials in January 1995. Koch later reneged, using a man as the starter and tactician, and America 3 lost to Black Magic of New Zealand, which won the Cup.

However, the august New York Times got some of the story wrong. "America Cubed" was the syndicate name, and their yacht USA-43 Mighty Mary actually lost to Team Dennis Conner during the defender trials in a bizarre, light-air final race that Mighty Mary led until just before the finish line -- one of the most thrilling finishes (or heartbreaking, depending, of course, on your perspective) in the history of Cup racing.

With their win that day off Point Loma, TDC advanced to the Match against the Kiwis, but first did a deal to switch from their slower USA-34 Stars & Stripes to PACT 95's yacht USA-36 Young America (the third defense candidate, and otherwise known as The Mermaid for the painting on its topsides by the noted artist Roy Lichtenstein). It didn't matter -- Team New Zealand's Black Magic was by far the best boat and team in San Diego that year, and in the AC Match the Defender was drubbed 5-0 by the Kiwis.

The man Bill Koch used as "starter and tactician" was David Dellenbaugh, brother of AC 32 chief umpire, Brad Dellenbaugh. Coincidentally, he displaced the American Olympic medalist JJ Isler, wife of BMW ORACLE's navigator Peter Isler. Of the experience Dave has written:

But in the end we were still the Women's Team, and the sailing crew exceeded almost everyone's expectations. The women proved that they are strong enough and skilled enough to function as sailors at the top level. They were able to do all this because they improved together as a team more than any of their competitors. In my opinion, that is a credit to the women, to the support network behind them, and to the principles of teamwork and attitude....

Historical footnote: through the '95 Cup cooperation by teams -- indeed, sharing equipment and even switching boats -- was permitted among teams representing yachts clubs of the same nation (defenders and challengers). After the Team NZ win, they installed strict rules in the AC 30 Protocol against sharing of design information, yachts and major equipment between competing teams even of the same nation, and those rules remain today.


Mighty Mary and Stars & Stripes racing during the Defender Finals
in lumpy conditions off San Diego's Point Loma in 1995. Photo
courtesy Louis Vuitton.