Olympic sports that deserve the chop

Perhaps because Ireland won no Sailing medals at the Paris 2024 Olympics, The Irish Times is calling for the International Olympic Committee to cut Sailing from the 2028 Games.

The purpose of their competition review is how the Olympics keeps adding events, quoting a rise of 41 percent since the Barcelona 1992 Games and, 20 percent since London 2012. How much is too much, they ask? Here is their pitch to chop Sailing:

How many of you own a boat? How many of you could get access to a boat and – checks notes – a sea to sail it in? Of all the many anachronisms at the modern Olympics, Sailing is perhaps the most conspicuous of all: a continuing sop to super-rich men who founded the Games and still just really love yachts, basically inaccessible to most of the countries in the world, even the ones with a viable coastline.

Plus, it is basically unwatchable as a spectator sport, liable to be postponed if there is either no wind or too much wind, and has a set of penalty rules indecipherable to all but the most avid boat people, which as we’ve established, you are almost certainly not. – Full report

Editor’s note: If you were wondering, yes, they also want to chop anything with a horse.

Paris 2024 Olympic Sailing Program:
Men’s One Person Dinghy – ILCA 7
Women’s One Person Dinghy – ILCA 6
Mixed Two Person Dinghy – 470
Men’s Skiff – 49er
Women’s Skiff – 49erFX
Men’s Kiteboard – Formula Kite Class
Women’s Kiteboard – Formula Kite Class
Men’s Windsurfing – iQFOiL
Women’s Windsurfing – iQFOiL
Mixed Multihull – Nacra 17

Venue: Marseille, France
Dates: July 28-August 9

Details:
• Paris website: https://www.paris2024.org/en/the-olympic-games-paris-2024/
• World Sailing microsite: https://paris2024.sailing.org/