US sailing’s chairman of the Olympic sailing committee Dean Brenner has watched on at the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy this week, the London 2012 venue, and has enjoyed what he has seen from his American sailors.

Heading into Friday America have ten boats in the top ten across 13 classes, including two women’s match racing teams battling it out for medals, led by Anna Tunnicliffe and Sally Barkow.

Unfortunately with only one London 2012 spot available either Tunnicliffe or Barkow will miss out, but with the standard so high for Brenner’s last Olympic involvement as chairman, he has high hopes of bowing out on a high.

“We are in the home stretch now with a little more than a year to go until the Olympic Games so this is a big event for us but especially so because it is the Olympic venue and even more so this year because we are using this event as part of our Olympic selection in all classes except for match racing,” said Brenner, who led the US team to a gold and silver in Beijing.

“We are really lucky with our match racing programme and we have three great teams in the US and we have a great team behind them and they have worked really hard and have had some great results here in Weymouth.

“The good thing is we have these excellent teams pushing each other but the bad thing is there will be one or two excellent match racing teams that don’t get to go to the Games next year.

“Of course we have our targets for London as every country does but Olympic sailing is about the long view and about building up a steady progression over time and we have a good plan.

There are obviously a number of classes where we are competitive and a few where we have some work to do.

“But I am definitely looking to go out on a high after London 2012. Our whole team has made a lot of progress over the last eight years and we are really proud of it but we will do the retrospective after we are done next year and right now our focus is on the Games.”