| Personal information | |
|---|---|
| Full name | Benjamin Oden Barger |
| Nationality |  United States |
| Born | December 24, 1980 Greenville, Texas, U.S. |
| Height | 1.83 m (6 ft 0 in) |
| Weight | 73 kg (161 lb) |
| Sport | |
| Sailing career | |
| Class | Sailboard |
| Club | St. Petersburg Yacht Club |
| Coach | Mike Gebhardt (USA) Aaron McIntosh (NZL) |
Benjamin Oden Barger (born December 24, 1980) is an American former windsurfer, who specialized in the RS:X class. [1] He was a seven-time national champion in his sporting discipline, an unofficial alternate for two Olympic teams (2004 and 2012), and the country's top male windsurfer for the 2008 Summer Olympics, finishing a lowly twenty-sixth place. [2] Outside competitive sailing, Barger served for four years as both the board trustee and chairman of the ISAF Athletes' Commission (2009 to 2013). [3] A member of St. Petersburg Yacht Club and a current resident of Tampa, Florida, Barger trained most of his sporting career under the mentorship of two-time medalist Mike Gebhardt; however, the pair announced their split professionally, when Gebhardt came out of retirement for another shot at Olympic glory in 2007. [4]
Barger competed for the U.S. sailing squad in the inaugural men's RS:X class at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. [5] Building up to his Olympic selection, he beat his former coach Gebhardt by eight points to lock the country's top RS:X spot at the U.S. Team Trials a year earlier in Long Beach, California. [6] Barger clearly struggled to catch a large fleet of windsurfers from behind under breezy conditions with marks lower than fifteenth place at the end of ten-race series, sitting him steadily in twenty-sixth overall with a net grade of 217. [2] [7]
