United States’ Andrew Campbell, above, is one of the contenders in the Laser class competition that Portsmouth Abbey grad Juan Ignacio Maegli will have to defeat for a medal.

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AP / Bernat Armangue

As Juan Ignacio Maegli was boarding a plane from San Francisco to Beijing last month, he noticed other Olympians on the flight.

It was obvious from the logos on their warm-ups and baggage that they would be representing the United States at the XXIX Olympic Games.

How many of you are there, he asked some of the athletes.

Two-hundred-fifty, he was told. But that’s just on this flight. There are more of us from the United States, they said. Make that nearly 600 in all.

So how many athletes are representing Guatemala, they asked Maegli.

His answer: A whopping 12.

There may not be many of them, but Maegli and his compatriots are doing their best to represent their Central American country with great pride at these Summer Games, which feature 10,000 competitors representing 205 nations.

And in Maegli’s case, he is also trying to represent his former high school — Portsmouth Abbey, where he graduated in 2007 — with great pride, as well.

“It’s been really exciting,” said Maegli when reached by phone in China earlier this week. “It’s really nice to be here. It feels really good to be part of such a movement like this.”

Maegli — who won the R.I. Interscholastic Sailing Associations’ Cressy Trophy after capturing the full rig division at the 2006 U.S. National High School Singlehanded Championships while sailing for Abbey — is competing in the men’s laser class at the Games. Although he has been sailing since he was 6, he is relatively new to this class, having gotten most of his early experience on Hobie Cat 16s, which are not contested at the Olympics.

Adjusting to the greater physical demands required when racing a laser has been a challenge, said the 20-year-old, who hails from Guatemala City and trains under Pedro Luis Fernandez.

“With the lasers, you have to be in good shape because you’re working the whole time, so that was the most difficult thing for me — going from little training to spending four or five hours a day working on the physical part and then two or three hours a day in the water,” said Maegli.

Maegli’s previous honors include a bronze medal in the Hobie Cat at the 2003 Pan American Games held in the Dominican Republic, a silver in that class at the 2006 Central American and Caribbean Games held in Colombia and a gold in the Hobie Cat at last year’s Pan Am Games in Rio de Janeiro.

“So it was really demanding and at first it was really hard to get used to and I wasn’t enjoying it as much. But now I’m learning to get used to it.”

Despite the transition, Maegli has been enjoying his share of success, enough to qualify for Beijing, which he did with his performance at the 2008 Laser Standard World Championship last February in Terrigal, New South Wales, Australia.

Sailing at the Summer Games has been held at the newly built Qingdao Olympic Sailing Center, which is located on Fushan Bay on the southern coastline of the Shangdong Peninsula.

The men’s lasers began sailing last Tuesday. And Maegli — who will attend school and sail for the College of Charleston in South Carolina beginning this fall — got off to a rough start in his first race when he received two yellow penalty flags and was disqualified. But he rebounded well, finishing ninth in the second race, also held that day.

“I think I rounded the first mark in 15th (in the second race). Then I was able to catch up, which is hard once you’re out there because you’re sailing against the best ones,” he said later that evening. “So I was really happy with that. Overall, the whole day I was sailing up front, which is really good for me because now I know I can be up there. ”

Light, shifty winds and the threat of storms have wreaked havoc on the racing schedule this week, forcing delays and postponements, but the lasers managed to get in the next two races, with Maegli finishing 39th in the third race on Wednesday and then 16th in yesterday’s race.

“It makes it really difficult when you have a big fleet like the lasers,” Maegli said. “One mistake can put you in the back of the fleet and in lighter winds, it’s really hard to catch up.”

Currently ranked 29th overall in the field of 43 with his 108 total points, Maegli will have three races today and another three races tomorrow, with the medal race for those who qualify to be held on Tuesday.

“In the first (laser) regattas, it was hard mentally because I was just starting and everyone else had more experience,” said Maegli, who feels his best shot at winning Guatemala’s first Olympic medal will be at the 2012 Summer Games in London. “So I found it hard at the beginning, and when I was in one-on-one situations with top guys, I usually got beaten just because I was thinking about how much better they were than me.

“But for the Olympics, I’ve been trying to ignore that. I had some pretty good results in Europe, so now I feel like I belong here. Maybe I can give a little surprise to some of the other athletes. It’s tough, but I think I can get in the top 20. But overall, I’m just really happy to be participating and any place I finish is good just having the experience of coming to the Olympics.”

And that is just the advice that Maegli has been receiving from his father, Juan Estuardo Maegli, who is also a Portsmouth Abbey graduate, as well as a three-time Olympian, having sailed for Guatemala in the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, the 1980 Olympics in Moscow and the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.

“Taking part is the most important aspect,” said the elder Maegli. “And trying to do your best. He’s rather new to the class and most of the competitors are quite a bit older with a lot more time and experience in the laser. Juani has put a lot of effort into it, but we expect him to make a good push in 2012, so here we’d just be happy with (finishing in) the top half of the fleet. Competing and competing well is what it’s really all about.”

cthorn@projo.com