Playing strip poker with the Olympics

by Craig Leweck, Scuttlebutt Sailing News
World Sailing, as the world governing body for the sport of sailing, has many tasks but possibly most important is to keep Sailing in the Olympic Games. They screwed up and had the sport dropped from the Paralympic Games, and the organization is not going to make that mistake twice.

The value of being included as a sport is the pile of money World Sailing receives from the International Olympic Committee (IOC), but also the funding distributed by national authorities to their participants. Being in the Olympics is very important for the sport in many countries.

While it would seem that Sailing is an established Olympic sport, having been included since the first Games in 1896, these aren’t your parents’ Olympics. The IOC fear’s their event’s relevance is slipping, and has asked every sport to present a more dynamic program. The end game is revenue, and Sailing isn’t helping.

Every four years, World Sailing reviews its Sailing Program with three objectives:
1. Don’t lose any medal events.
2. Don’t change anything as change is expensive for nations.
3. Change whatever it takes to appease the IOC.

The problem with the latter is what appeases the IOC is not always clear. They may issue directives, but what it takes to meet them can be a mystery. However, World Sailing ignored the IOC directives after Rio 2016, and was penalized when the Sailing Program did not change for Tokyo 2020. That act of disobedience could not be repeated.

As much as World Sailing wants to stay in the Olympic Games, so do each Class Organization which is included in the party. Just ask the Star Class, involved for 18 Games, how it felt getting removed after London 2012. Or the Finn Class, also a participant for 18 Games which ended after Tokyo 2020. They hate it!

While there is an easy argument in which Olympic inclusion is not great for Class health, as the exceedingly high level of excellence is not for the weekend warrior, the party invite has proven too sweet. Nobody wants to leave.

So, everyone sharpened their pencil for Paris 2024, adjusting the ten events to meet the gender balance directive while putting forth more dynamic equipment and competition formats. Significant change proved necessary. Gone was the Finn, and the 470 merged two fleets – men’s and women’s – into one mixed. But nowhere was change most dramatic than with the board events.

Windsurfing changed its equipment from the RS:X, which was created for the 2008 Olympics, to the much faster iQFOiL conceived for Paris 2024. With the Finn gone and 470 downsized, it then allowed the kiting community to be included. With foiling boards for men and women, these four events are now the belle of the ball.

But the boards didn’t stop there, and that has people wondering if they went too far. Sailing is a sport with challenging variables, with consistency over a series of races allowing the cream to rise. However, these four events wanted to be the next 100-meter dash in which the winner of the last race gets the Gold Medal.

While the Kite format provides a slight nod toward consistency, the Windsurfer created a winner-take-all final in which the top seeded sailor is arguably disadvantaged. While this is good for the audience, shouldn’t it be good for the competitor too?

“This system looked good to bureaucrats in a committee room,” offered coach and competitor Andrew Palfrey. “Clearly those people are too far removed from actual sailing to understand what sailors and sailing fans want and to have empathy for sailors.

“The format might seem to work okay in a place like SailGP, which is more about entertainment and viewers than anything else, but for the Olympic Games, where people have literally invested their life into pursuing excellence across all facets of the sport and consistency through all wind ranges…are you kidding?

“It’s a double whammy for the leader in the system they are using. Not only do they lose whatever advantage built up over the regatta (and you could argue, over the years of training), they also go into the final race against competitors who have just raced hard on the course, are fully in the zone and know the subtleties of the race track.

“Maybe the bureaucrats are happy with the result. But this one feels wrong…”

The scoring format evolved during the build-up toward Paris 2024. Will it be modified for the 2028 Olympics? Standing by.