Anna Tunnicliffe was a stranger in a strange land.
The 12-year-old had moved from England to Perrysburg and she just wanted to fit in.
She found her happy place: North Cape Yacht Club in nearby La Salle, Mich., where she started a competitive sailing career that would take her around the world and to the top of the Olympic podium.
The 2001 Perrysburg graduate was a three-sport star for the Yellow Jackets — cross country, swimming, and track, winning the district championship in the 800 as a senior. In 2022, Tunnicliffe was inducted into the Perrysburg athletics Hall of Fame.
She led Old Dominion University to four consecutive sailing national championships, earning another Hall of Fame nod. Tunnicliffe was a three-time All-American and the quantum sailor of the year as a senior.
While watching the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, she told her parents that she wanted to win a gold medal. In a conversation with George W. Bush before leaving for Beijing in 2008, Tunnicliffe said she would win the gold medal. She made good on the promise to the President by bringing home the gold in the women’s laser radial competition.
Tunnicliffe Tobias (she married Brad Tobias in 2016) attempted to qualify for the 2024 Olympics but the 41-year-old has no plans to extend her sailing career into 2028.
She talked to The Blade this week about her move across the Atlantic, how she became a gold medalist, and her ascension in the world of CrossFit.
The Blade: What was it like moving to Perrysburg from England?
Tunnicliffe Tobias: It was definitely overwhelming. I didn’t really know what to expect when I moved here because I’d never left England. Once I got here, it was warm. I settled in fairly quickly, but it was definitely very different for a 12-year-old who’d never left their own country before. Obviously, my roots are British. I say I was born in England, but grew up in Ohio. So I guess in a way I say that I’m from Perrysburg.
The Blade: Sailing is not an easy sport. Were you good right away or was it something you really had to learn to conquer?
Tunnicliffe Tobias: When I sailed in England, I wasn’t very good. I got my butt kicked all the time. When I moved to Perrysburg and started sailing out of Norfolk, I started doing better. I was decent right away and then as, as I grew up, I got really good locally. But when I went to a national event, I got my butt kicked. So it was a good awakening for me. Like, hey, you’ve still got a lot of work to do. So you can’t just be satisfied by being good here if you want to do well down the road.
The Blade: How much did what you learned while living in Ohio put you on the path to being in the Olympics and being one of the best in the world?
Tunnicliffe Tobias: I learned a lot about training, about discipline. But I think a lot of it had to do with more than just my sport. It was the way I was brought up. I did the cello in three orchestras. I did cross country. I did track and swimming. So I had to learn a lot of discipline and use that in my sport. I learned how to win when I was living in Ohio.
I don’t mean it in an overconfident way. I was at the front of the fleet a lot when I lived in Ohio, and then I went nationally and I wasn't. So it gave me that feeling of not liking to lose. I hated losing. It gave me that little spark, that little fire that says there’s a lot of work that you have to do to keep doing. You can never be satisfied with where you are.
The Blade: When did the Olympics become a realistic goal?
Tunnicliffe Tobias: In 1996, I said I wanted to go to the Olympics. I just always kept that in the back of my mind. It was always something that I wanted to do and knew it was going to be a lot of hard work.
The Blade: The process of qualifying, competing, and winning the gold medal, what is that all like?
Tunnicliffe Tobias: Qualifying is extremely stressful. It’s probably the least favorite event of my career just because it’s do or die. There’s so much stress. Once you’ve qualified, your mindset switches. I was like, OK, there’s one big weight off my shoulders and then focusing on the goal of trying to win a medal at the Olympics.
The goal was never to qualify for the Olympics. The goal was to win a medal at the Olympics.
The Blade: Is winning the gold medal more elation or satisfaction? I’m sure there are so many emotions.
Tunnicliffe Tobias: It’s pride. It’s joy. It’s satisfaction. It’s relief.
It’s four years of your life that you’ve dedicated to that one week of work. When it finally pays off, all the sacrifices, all the hard work, the tears, the mental battles you’ve had with yourself, the ups and the downs, it was worth it.
The Blade: When you got knocked out in 2012, you talked about the heartbreak and how devastating it was, and I’m sure in the moment it was and maybe it still is. But did already winning a gold medal ease the pain?
Tunnicliffe Tobias: No, not at all. It was a really difficult loss. It’s not just myself losing the medal, but my teammates didn't get it, my country didn’t get it. There’s that feeling of, I wouldn’t say I let everybody down because we gave it our best effort, but we didn’t do what we set out to do.
The Blade: There’s a crossover in the muscles used in sailing and CrossFit. Is that where the appeal came from?
Tunnicliffe Tobias: I liked the idea of the fitness side of it. I liked how much fitter I got doing it versus what I was doing before. I’m a little sick and twisted in the sense that I like that sort of pain and punishment to push my body. And it was just a different outlet for competition.
In sailing, there are a lot of things that are in your control. But there’s also a large amount of things that are out of your control. In CrossFit, it’s how badly do you want to push your body to hurt. How much pain can you push your body through to keep moving through a workout?
I liked that challenge of you versus you and the mental challenge of you versus you. After the London Olympics, I just needed a break from sailing, and this was a great competitive outlet that I could still do.
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