Season’s Greetings from World Sailing

A holiday message from Quanhai Li, President of World Sailing:

As we approach the Christmas and New Year holidays, I would like to extend my sincere greetings and very best wishes to all of our friends, partners and sailors around the world.

This year has been another challenging year for sailing and other international sports federations following restrictions and the ongoing global pandemic.

I would like to personally recognize and thank all those that have worked tirelessly in our sport during these times to ensure the safe and successful operation of their organizations and events. Sailing events and activities not only help us to build strong communities, but also improve our mental and physical well-being, which is so important to us all during these times.

It has been encouraging to see that with proper pandemic safety protocols being put in place, sailors on all continents are recovering more quickly, returning to sea, and more normal activities from training events to local and international competitions, including major events such as the Tokyo Olympics have been able to take place. These have all helped to rebuild confidence in our sport and industry.

We have been working very hard at World Sailing this year, with some of our successful achievements including solving the issues around the sailing events for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games and establishing a closer relationship with the International Olympic Committee. This has strengthened mutual trust and understanding between our organizations while working together to promote the Olympic movement.

At the same time, we also have been working continuously to see sailing reinstated for the 2028 LA Paralympic Games. We have been comprehensively promoting the development of sailing on all continents and establishing better communications with all our stakeholders and partners to jointly formulate global development plans.

During this past year, we have also worked to build the more stable and efficient operation of World Sailing, including efforts to promote marketing development and governance reforms designed to properly safeguard the core interests and values of World Sailing. Here I extend my heartfelt thanks to all those that have been involved in this process, contributing their valuable time and expertise.

We know we have much work to do, more challenges and difficulties to come, and we will continue to dedicate our efforts to growing the sport across every area as we look towards 2022.

I am very proud to represent World Sailing as President and I look forward to the opportunity of personally meeting with as many of you as possible when the reduced restrictions will allow.

Again, I wish you all good health, a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Safe travels and safe sailing.