JULY 31, 2001
By LaMOND POPE
Journal Staff
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| SIMON WHEELER/Journal
Staff Pole vaulter Nathan Jauvtis, left, and sailor Charles Williamson show off their gold medals Sunday at the Ithaca Yacht Club. |
ITHACA - Prior to heading to the Empire State Games, Cornell graduate student Nathan Jauvtis and his research professor, Charles Williamson, made a pact to both return to Ithaca with gold medals.
Jauvtis won his gold medal in the pole vault on Thursday - the same day Williamson, a mechanical engineering professor, began the first of three days in the open class laser sailing event.
On Saturday, following his 11th and final race at Delta Lake, Williamson telephoned Jauvtis with his results.
"I called and said, `I've got some news for you.' He took a couple of wild guesses, as a joke, but he knew very bloody well what I was going to say," Williamson, who was born in England, said from his home on Sunday. "I finally told him, `The pact has succeeded.'"
Williamson finished first in three of the 11 races and placed second in three more to capture his first gold medal in the open class laser sailing at the 24th annual ESG.
"It's a pretty unusual thing, for a professor and his research student, to perform as well in two completely different sports," Williamson said. "I had thought it would happen before this year, but I had a two-year slump. This is the really the most fun thing."
Williamson stood in second, just two points from the leader Rudy Ratsep, after two windy days on Delta Lake.
More accustomed to light wind conditions of Cayuga Lake, Williamson turned on the television early Saturday morning for a weather report.
"I knew if the wind lightened for the final day, it would be more like Cayuga Lake, where I train," Williamson said. "The report was for really light winds, and I knew right then that the game was on."
Williamson took control early in the final race, and easily outdistanced Ratsep to win the gold.
Ratsep, who is from Long Island, earned the silver, while Ithacan Cameron Hoard won the bronze.
"It was really depressing not to have won it (before)," said Williamson, who served as the chairman of the sailing at last year's Empire State Games.
Without that responsibility this year, he said, "I knew I could relax and really focus this year on the race."
The approach paid off.
Williamson's previous best finish was second in 1998 in Rochester, where he lost by one point. And while he was excited about finally capturing the gold, Williamson was thrilled with completing the deal with Jauvtis.
"I had trained with some great sailors at the Ithaca Yacht Club, and
of course Nathan was on form too," Williamson said. "We were ready
to go for the gold, both of us. And we completed the pact."