Olympic Classes

Firstly, to make the Olympics you have to be the top team for your country over the Qualifing period ( up to 4 years).....  That is a measure of consistancy, not a potential one off brilliance if you win a Worlds.  Then you will race against the best of other countries that are consistantly good performers and not one shot specials.  This will be 4 years of dedication, putting your carrier, relationships, life on hold for this one in 4 year event.

There is no doupting the importance of an Olympic Campaign.

The Olympics also gives sailing that little bit more exposure to the general public which can not be a bad thing.

National Bodies both sporting and government give $$$$ for Olympic success.  If sailing is not in the Olympics, then these $$$$ go to another sport.

These $$$$ goes into facilities, assisting in financing the running of our National and state yachting bodies, research and develpment in boats, sails, rigs, hardware, systems, sailing techneques at a FULLY PROFESIONAL level.  This in turn trickles down to non Olympic classes and sailors benifiting the whole sport.

Those who are closed minded will not see how important and how much to offer, Olympic competition is to the general yachting comunity.

It absolutley $hits me to tears every time I here this comment and makes me realise how ill informed, closed minded and just plain greedy some people are.

I say greedy because those who make this comment only care about how it directly effects THEM in the imediate short term and is not appreciative of the long term direct and indirect gains our sport gets from an Olympic Games.

I agree totally with Stephan, how can you say that Sailing should not be in the Olympics?! Every class of boat in england even if it is not an Olympic Class will have had some benefit from sailing being the Olympics. Sailing would not be any where near as big as it is today without the Olympics nor would we have so much funding and opportunity availble and coaching available. The RYA do not force kids or people to sail Olympic Classes but simply say that if you want to go to the Olympics this is what you need to do to get our support. The RYA's money comes from Sport England and the RYA can not simply give this money to any class of boat it has been alocated and they only get because of the Olympics.

Personally I think the MPS should replace the Finn in the Olympics in terms of attracting more veiwers of maybe even the Moth. The Finn is a great boat with really tight racing and it is also demanding to sail, but show any non-sailor video footage of a Finn in 15knots and a MPS and all of them will say the MPS looks cool and more exciting. If you know a lot about sailing then watching Finn's sail is really good because you can understand it but not to the general non-sailor.

So how many countries have fleets?  

Exactly the point I was making. The "men's" and "women's" classes are intended to be "out of the box" equipment, while all the "open" classes are intended to allow for development. On that basis it's not possible to replace the Finn with the MPS.

On another note, there's very little point in discussing what could/couldn't be the next Olympic class because

A) If IOC/ISAF want a particular class, they will simply write the criteria to fit that class, or ignore the criteria as they did with the 49er

B) Most of the established "one design", as opposed to "development", classes would be pretty thoughtful as to whether they would want to be selected. I can't see a Manufacturer wanting to have it's brand spanking new class appropriated by the 5-ring circus, can you? In theory it couldn't happen, because there is a requirement for any Olympic class to be an International class first. That didn't stop ISAF from selecting the 49er though!

BTW, in case anyone thinks I'm bitter and twisted about the 49er, it's a great boat and Olympic sailing is better off for it's inclusion

Neil