Hi, my name is Pierce Olsen. I am two minutes older than my twin brother Fynn. I love everything related to water, such as scuba diving, surfing, wakeboarding, fishing, and sailing, which is now my main passion. I started sailing for fun on Open Bics out of Miami Yacht Club at eight years old. After three years of summer camps and sailing for fun, I felt the drive to compete at a higher level than my local summer camp. I was inspired to switch to the optimist class at 11 years old. Since then, my love for the sport grew as I traveled worldwide for different events. I competed at North Americans in Mexico, winning Team Racing, and the World Championship in Italy, placing 14th overall with Team USA. 

Uniting with my twin, I decided to join forces and started to sail the 29er class and competed at the 29er Open Worlds in Valencia, Spain, in 2021 after only 10 days of sailing. There were many big changes in positioning, as I was now a crew and understanding of the boat; nevertheless, we finished 80th out of 190 boats. During the high school spring season, I compete for my school team, Hotchkiss, in club 420s and FJs, at New Englands and Nationals, and in the summer I sail 29ers. Some highlights of high school sailing include team racing, which is a three-boat versus three-boat race, hence the name team racing, which is always fun to do with your team. Some other boats I also sail include the Waszps and the 69F, which are foiling boats that fly out of the air and go quite fast. My max speed on a single-handed, one-person Wazsp is 24.4 knots, while on a triple-handed, three-person 69F is 31.1 knots. In the summer of 2024, I aged out of the Youth Sailing program after finishing Youth Worlds, which is also known as the “mini youth Olympics,” as the criteria to qualify is the same for the Olympics and each country can only send one boat per sailing class, finishing in 6th place in the Male/Mixed 29er class out of 29 boats. 

Pursuing my Olympic dream, the Olympic Development Team invited me to participate in their federation training camps for rising and current sailing stars. Now sailing the 49er FX, the Olympic-class female boat, since I am not heavy enough for the male full rig, I am sharpening my skills and knowledge to campaign for the not-so-far 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.