Sail Canada Sailor of the Month – John McRoberts and Jackie Gay

Sail Canada’s Sailor of the Month award acknowledges sailing achievements by Canadians involved or associated with the sport in all its forms. Here are the latest recipients…

Jackie Gay and John McRoberts

Jackie Gay and John McRoberts, partners both on and off the water, had a month to remember. After years of training and campaigning, the couple can now call themselves Paralympic silver medalists. The Sailor of the Month award is yet another accomplishment that Canada’s sailing power couple can add to their list.

Jackie and John traveled to Rio in September, confident that they would achieve a strong performance in the SKUD fleet at the 2016 Paralympic Games. The duo’s fortitude was quickly put to the test when Jackie suffered a significant injury only a few days ahead of competition. To add to the pressure cooker, Jackie was only cleared to compete the day before racing started.

John and Jackie managed to persevere through ten grueling races over 5 days, ultimately sitting tied for 2nd place with GBR heading into the final race. Canada trailed GBR in the final race until the last few seconds of the last leg when Jackie and John pulled a hail mary to overtake the Brits to ultimately secure the silver medal.

The SKUD team could not be more thrilled about the outcome: “We are overwhelmed by the support, excitement and congratulations we’ve received both during our campaign and since that unforgettable day in Rio, it has been a great pleasure to share it with so many people since we got home and this award will spread the love even further. Thank you Sail Canada!”

Jackie and John were not the only members of the team that took home some hardware. 2008 Paralympic gold medalist Paul Tingley and teammates Scott Lutes and Logan Campbell took home the bronze medal in the Sonar fleet after a big comeback finish. The trio won the bronze medal tiebreaker against the New Zealand team. In the 2.4mR, Bruce Millar attained a respectable tenth place finish in a highly competitive fleet, finishing top 5 in some races.

Congratulations to the entire Paralympic team, athletes, coaches and support team for bringing home two medals for Canada!
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Sail Canada’s Sailor of the Month award acknowledges sailing achievements by Canadians involved or associated with the sport in all its forms. Sail Canada encourages the submission of noteworthy Canadian sailing activities to sailorofthemonth@sailing.ca.