What do you think?

Readers share their view on the new classes format for the 2012 Olympic Gmes

It seems the recent announcement cutting the number of Olympic disciplines from 10 to 11 has sparked some significant debate within our readership. If you missed out on this major development see our news story about it here.

Email us your views - here

Martin Makey, Commodore of the Royal Corinthian Yacht Club - Burnham writes:

"I think it would be a very retrograde step to remove the 470 class from the roster of Olympic classes. The present system of encouraging excellence in sailing from a young age (Oppies/Cadets/Fevers etc) through 420s and then to 470s gives the sport of sailing a consistent and long term personal structure for individuals and national organising bodies such as the RYA. Through to 470 class, male and female sailors can compete on an equal footing and there may be a case for amending class rules (weight for example) so that this becomes an open class.

Although I think the Finn is a superb sailing dinghy, surely with the Laser as a single hander most likely to stay the logical move is to take out the Finn so that there is room left for the traditional two person spinnaker boat. If the IOC is concerned about viewer numbers there must be many obscure Olympic disciplines which should be removed. I don’t think that viewer numbers should play an important part in the decision making criteria for inclusion as an Olympic sport. It strikes me that ISAF are not being robust enough in defending our sport’s Olympic credentials."

From Ireland Franz Rothschild writes:

"If sailing wants to grab olympic headlines it should do the smart thing and make the 470 a combined male/female class thus becoming the only sport other than equestrian that has men and women competing against each other on an equal footing.

This will also increase sailings profile within the IOC and give it a strong argument against it being reduced any more as it will get much greater media coverage as a combined sport.

If this had been suggested six years ago then we may still have had the Soling in the Olympics."

Ex Europe sailor, Sarah Butcher writes:

"The biggest shame about one less medal for 2012 is the lack of certainty it creates for the sailors. Do you really want to invest thousands of pounds in a boat e.g. Yngling, Star or Tornado which are probably the most cash intensive and launch a campaign now for 2012 when it could be removed from the games? It seems rather unfair on such athletes.

One could respond by arguing that the sailing skills should be transferable across boats, of which Team GBR is a good example, but it is not likely to encourage more countries to participate, which seems to be the main driving force behind this change, if the national federations don't know which boats and therefore classes to invest in.

This might all come across rather strongly, but I had my fingers and bank balance badly burnt in the Europe/Radial switch!

Keep up the good work. "

From London Simon Nelson Writes:

"I read your article on the announcement of the dropping of one medal with interest and surprise. In terms of the discussion you laid out, I believe that it was fundamentally flawed. ISAF has already stated that the starting point will be the choosing of the 10 “events” and that these will be announced next November. A year later, the classes that will be used for those events will be chosen.

In the light of this, we need to be discussing the events first, classes second. On that basis, maybe we will see some new “events”. For instance, the women’s two person dinghy could be replaced with a women’s skiff. There is also discussion of “Compulsory Mixed”. However, while I believe this would get support from ISAF and help sort out gender numbers, the IOC don’t like it as a type of event. They are happy with “open”, being open to both genders but they seem to be very much against compulsory mixed.

However, it might be that some creative lobbying could find a way around that issue. It would certainly bring a lot of people into Olympic sailing for the same reason that we see classes like the RS800 doing so well – people like to sail with their partners. Time away from loved ones is a big factor in committing to the Olympic circuit and a compulsory mixed category would solve that problem!

Another option might be to have an open category that really is “open”. The classes currently rated as open aren’t working. In fact, there has only ever been one woman who has competed at the Olympics in an open event, that being our own Cathy Foster. It’s not a good advert for the “open” events. What is the point in having a class called the “open single handed” and then choosing the Laser, where the ideal weight is 80+ kgs and men have an advantage based on strength? Maybe it’s time for a class that is aimed at smaller men and women. It seems that women compete reasonably well against men in the Laser Radial but is there something else out there that would do the job even better?

Finally, if we look at the classes themselves, you can see why Petersson said that there is an image gap! The Olympics is the showcase of our sport, a real opportunity to spark the imagination of youngsters and to get them to take up the sport. However, what do we have as equipment? If the Star is an Olympic class in 2012, it will be celebrating it’s 100th birthday during that cycle! Or the Finn, which will be celebrating the 60th anniversary of it’s first appearance in the Olympics. Or the 470, which will be one year short of it’s 50th birthday.

In fact, the base designs of all the classes except the 49er and the RSX will be over 40 years old in 2012! I wonder how many non sailing youngsters are inspired to get into a sport where the equipment is so old. Imagine if cyclists were made to use 100 year old bicycles. While some of these old classes are very good boats, surely this is not the image we want to put out to the youth of today! How inspirational will it be for young people to see the Yngling making one or two knots over the current in 2008!

While the sailors love some of these old classes (the Star and Finn in particular), those who want to go Olympic sailing will use the classes chosen, irrespective of how good or bad it is. The Yngling has proven that (sorry to pick on the class!) That being so, surely we need to be sailing classes that inspire people to take up sailing.

Finally, the choice isn’t between having exciting boats in the Olympics or dull ones. It is between having sailing in the Olympics or not. Make no mistake, if sailing doesn’t become more media friendly, it will be kicked out of the Olympics. Sailing in 2008 is likely to be dire in this respect but at least ISAF has the already accepted excuse that the prevailing conditions are wrong and that they were given no choice of where to sail. In 2012 there will be no such excuse. If the 2012 Olympic regatta isn’t a media success, sailing will probably not be in the Olympics any more. So what, some may say, until you realise that the majority of the funding of our governing body is provided by Olympic related revenues. Sailing might still survive, but it would be dealt a very nasty blow."

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