The 2016 Sailing Olympics Is Now a Game of Chance

From International Sailing Federation’s (ISAF) perspective, here is exactly why ISAF must abandon the courses inside and outside Guanabara Bay immediately and order the event moved elsewhere to a clean water site in Brazil, it is no longer about the pursuit of perfection and fair play, it has become a Game of Chance, Glenn McCarthy explains:

CONCEPT 1
International Sailing Federation has not hired a statistician who has calculated the: boat damages; illness competitors have picked up; and, boats that have been stopped by hitting garbage in practice and regattas, and has not showed the math that Guanabara Bay will work. The evidence has shown that it doesn’t work to provide a fair contest.

CONCEPT 2
No one ever designed the sport with the expectation that the water can provide illness to competitors or is full of trash hampering competitors’ advances on a race course. There are no rules that address this.

CONCEPT 3
Each country currently is on their own to conduct their own water quality tests of Guanabara Bay, and for those who have done this, they all seem to keep the results hidden. Some countries are bringing doctors to treat their athletes should they become ill. This process is a fiasco, and in of itself is unfair that medical prevention and care are not standardized. If ISAF were to make this fair:

• ISAF would conduct water quality tests;
• ISAF would hire the doctors to determine the right course of treatment, prophylactic antibiotics, and immunizations necessary to safely sail in the fetid waters of Guanabara Bay; and,
• ISAF would require that each athlete who practices or competes in Guanabara provide a doctors report that they have been treated per ISAF’s standard of medical prevention.

Right now, there is no standard to assure all athletes are prepared medically to sail in these fetid waters. This makes competition unfair. Some athletes might not have preventative treatment, or not know all of the hazards contained in the water.

CONCEPT 4
As the Redress rules do not provide assistance for boat damage caused by debris or slowed by hitting debris in the water, does not provide resolution for a competitor who falls ill, the one thing the judges can do is abandon the entire race each time a boat hits debris. In a rare incident in a race anywhere in the world, this can make sense, but planning for this eventuality for Guanabara Bay where this is most assured, happens to be just plain dumb. Read on.