Olympic Sailing - interesting paper

Originally posted by JimC Originally posted by Sam.Spoons Kiting is not 'sailing', or if it is then so is skydiving. For a sport to be sailing it has to use sails as the means of propulsion  You can argue against that. Like conventional sailing kiting is using the difference in movement between the ground and the air to control speed and direction. The basic physics is much the same. Skydiving is about gravity and air. Its really very different.

I don't think we should apologise for being a 1st world country and the benefits that come with it, neither should expensive sports that 3rd world countries can't afford be banned from olympics.

Half the trouble is that the message they get from the IOC keeps changing.

The thing y'all are missing and personally I don't give a toss if sailing remains in the Olympics or not, but that's what's at stake here. Sailing is all those things, 1st world, none diverse either racially or gender so you should consider it lucky that you have wind or kitesurfing to spread that diversity and relatively quickly. As for TV ratings well we all know how that's going.

Personally I fought really hard for years to keep kiting out of the clutches of the RYA and was gutted when those speed sailing dicks sold out to IFCA to get their speeds ratified. But it's in, there have been a few high level sales meetings talking about the format and the Neil Pryde group are ramming a One Design kite set up into play as fast as they can, the only reason we've not seen it over here is the guy charged with setting it up doesn't yet know his way around (he's asking me ffs so you can imagine the steer I gave him).

On another note, The powers that be in S.U. Paddlesport are also trending toward the BCU as governing body for their future which could have fallen into RYA and similar MNA's hands another example of the fallout caused by their crap attitude to the governance of windsurfing in the past.

As far as sailing is concerned, this could be the last roll of the dice and the whole issue gets its arse kicked out by the IOC due to crap TV ratings and then only finally will they realise what a complete and utter f**k up they've made of it all.

Confidentiality agreements et al.

Why do you need diversity? Sprint athletics can only be won by those ethnically from West Africa, the reality is that they are superior.