Disqualification Knocks Wilmette Native Out Of Medal Contention

WILMETTE, IL — The U.S. Olympic sailing team made up of Wilmette native Maggie Shea and Wisconsinite Stephanie Roble missed out on Tuesday's medal race in the women's skiff event at the Tokyo Olympics after umpires disqualified them from the penultimate qualifying race.

Shea, a New Trier High School grad, and Roble, a native of East Troy, had been in sixth place entering the final day of last week's 12-race qualifying series, according to US Sailing. With three races to go, the team was 15 points outside of medal contention heading into Saturday.

Teams are awarded the same number of points as their finishing position in each race — one for first, two for second — so a lower score is better. After a dozen qualifiers, the lowest scores are dropped and the top 10 teams advance to the medal race, where points are doubled and added to the total.

On race 10, Roble and Shea were penalized by umpires with their first-ever yellow flag for a breach of Rule 42, which forbids sailors from moving around to propel the boat. They finished that race in 14th position out of 21 teams.

On the second race of the day, race 11, the Americans' boat struck a mark as they sailed around it. They immediately moved to get out of the way of other boats and start clearing the penalty by completing a 360-degree turn, Shea told US Sailing.

“After hitting it, we were working to get around the mark as the whole fleet was right there,” Shea said. “We didn’t want to get tangled up on the mark and cause a pileup. We wanted to get out of the way. We got around the mark, and immediately started spinning. In the process of spinning, the umpires flagged us again for what we thought was hitting the mark. We were already spinning for hitting the mark, and kept sailing once we finished, thinking we were clear.”

It was not until after they completed the race, finishing in eighth position, that Roble and Shea learned from umpires that they had been flagged for another improper movement violation.

“We told the umpires that we spun for hitting the mark, and they said [that we breached Rule 42] before we hit it,” said Shea. “We and others that I’ve spoken to assumed that they were flagging us for hitting the mark. We knew we hit it, and we were in the process of getting out of the way of the fleet in order to spin.”

But officials scored the team as DNE, or "do not exclude," for the second yellow flag and subsequent failure to pull out of the race. The disqualification meant Roble and Shea were given the maximum number of points, which cannot be dropped from the total.

"This result doesn’t represent all that we’ve learned and accomplished," Roble said after the race. "We were sailing well throughout the event, and today we were sailing to win. We left it all out there.”

The Americans finished race 12 in 5th place, but it left them three points short of advancing to the medal round. According to US Sailing, the team would have been in medal contention had they not been disqualified.

Read more: Strong Start For North Shore Native Maggie Shea In Olympic Debut

Teammates for the past five years, Shea and Roble grew up competing against one another in local sailing competitions. At the most recent world championships in 2019, the duo took bronze in the Women's 49er FX event.

Originally scheduled for Monday, the Olympic 49er FX medal race was postponed by 24 hours due to insufficient wind. A third-place finish in the final race was enough for the Brazilian team to take gold. Germany took silver, and bronze went to the Dutch.

In a statement posted to social media after their elimination, Roble and Shea said they were taking time to process and reflect what happened on the waters off Enoshima, Japan.

"We are obviously disappointed with our eleventh place finish at the Tokyo Olympics," Roble and Shea said in a statement posted to social media. "However, we are very proud of what we accomplished in this campaign and we know that this result does not define who we are as athletes or people."