Third time's a charm for San Francisco’s Hans Henken.
The sailor will be a first-time Olympian in Paris. He and his partner, Ian Barrows, will be competing in the men’s skiff.
Henken's Olympic journey started back in 2015. He was an alternate for Rio and didn’t make the team in Tokyo.
Almost 10 years later, all the hard work has paid off.
"I'm blown away," Henken said. "It's such a cliché to say you can do the hard work, it's going to pay off, and there's no guarantees. I've definitely been on that side of things where you put all the hard work in and it doesn't kind of come together. But to also see it come together, it's an amazing feeling. It really gives me a lot of inspiration in my life to say you can continue to dream big outside of the Olympics."
Henken is also pretty smart. He received a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in aeronautical and astronautical engineering at Stanford University.
He’s using that knowledge to navigate the water and the weather.
"I learned how to design airplane wings," he said. "A sailboat is basically an airplane with half an airplane wing that's sticking up in the air off the boat. If you were to break down sailing to its most simple elements, it's a decision making sport. It's how well you're able to make decisions in the heat of the moment. What I mean by that is even the Weather Channel has a hard time predicting what the weather is, and our entire sport is based on understanding what the wind's going to do."
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