Olympic Classes for 2012

Originally posted by Brian 42 Hi Folks, New to the forum - so if I'm repeating stuff - sorry.

You are I'm afraid. I sometimes think I should make an FAQ, but to a certain extent it changes every year as IOC priorities change.

There are a lot of IOC mandated rules that there is no choice but to comply with. For instance IOC mandates that at least 30% of competitors must be women, so at least 30% of the places available must be in all female classes.

Another current IOC priority is inclusion - equipment and events should be as far as possible worldwide, not restricted to the rich west.

Those two probably mandate 6 events, MF Laser, MF 470 MF board, especially as the non first world countries are very keen on those events so they get a lot of votes. They really don't want those to change.

That leaves 4 classes to play with, and at least one of those should be a women's class.

I hope that we all would like to see sailing continue in the Paralympics, but if it will do so there must be at least one keelboat class and preferably two in the main games or else the keelboat facilities won't exist for the Paralympics, so one M, one F.

That leaves places for two classes to fight out for the remaining medals, including Finn (immensely popular in central/eastern Europe and a big history) 49er, (big on spectacle) Multihull (also big on spectacle, but not strong outside the first world), women's high performance (apparently not popular anywhere but talked up a lot), foilers, team racing and about a hundred other options... I'm glad I don't have to make the decision because it can never be right!

In an ideal world yes not a bad amix at all but the olymics classses and selection are more to do with who you know on the IOC...

Originally posted by JimC Or to put it another way, rather than rely on the opinion of the tiny self selected caucus of the technical committee, they give the final say to the much more democratic council, which has representatives from all over the world,reflecting all shades of opinion.

It would be naive though to suggest that a democratic council would be the panacea of disinterested representation. Political voting and corruption are commonplace throughout democracies and can be no less self-serving than the quango of a tech-committee. Eurovision anyone?

Originally posted by tickler We have been here before.....and I have said this before. Since we are looking for the best sailors and not the best boats give everyone identical logs, small for little people, bigger for large people and even bigger for two people. Obviously we cant' do that (although It's a Knockout was very popular) but we could have a dedicated Olympic class with variations built in, the boats could be issued to likely National teams two years in advance, someone suggested NS 14 and its variants?

Sounds like a fine idea.

A class and Tornado fit the bill just fine.  Simples.....

Peaky's right - we have to decide what its all for.  Remember that the World Championship in any class is the pinnacle of achievement.