| Ben Barger | |
| Full Name: | Benjamin Oden Barger |
| Birth Date: | 24 December 1980 |
| Birth Place: | Greenville, Texas, U.S. |
| Weight: | 730NaN0 |
| Classes: | Sailboard |
| Club: | St. Petersburg Yacht Club |
| Coach: | Mike Gebhardt (USA) Aaron McIntosh (NZL) |
| Show-Medals: | yes |
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]