Olympic Classes

Originally posted by Helz I think there should b more sailing in the olympics. How about Topper Class (women) Vago Class (Mixed) Moth Class (Male) it would b good 2 get more emphasis on sailing in a country that is surounded by water and were only 10% of the inhabitants can sail competantly.

Any reasoning behind those coices? seems a bit of a jup from topper/vago to moth

Family boats in the olympics ....

Please no!!!

Sounds a bit like Estate Car racing being at the pinnacle of Motor sport, which now I come to think of it could be quite entertaining  .

Just to make this more constructive, classes should IMO be these, (depending on if they want to change classes as well as categories) :

Female Singlehander : Laser Radial
Open Singlehander : Laser
Male Singlehander : Finn or Musto

Open Windurfer : RS:X

Female Doublehander : Trials
Joint (Compulsory 1 male and 1 female) Doublehander : 470 unless someones got a better suggestion?
Mens Doublehander : 49er

Open Multi-hull : Tornado

Open lead-mine : Open to suggestions.

It is nine classes they are cutting it down to right?

Working on that assumption I've limited it to one keel class as they are more expensive, take up more of the Athlete allocation and are harder to transport.


Edited by Hobbo

I think a year's windsurfer production is equal to half of the entire production of Lasers, ever - so giving the boards just one medal (which will go to a guy because of higher mass/muscle ratio) seems extremely unfair when the singlehanded dinghies get three medals.

The number of windsurfers built each month or so they probably equals the number of skiff types that have been built in 100+ years, so it seems very unfair that the skiffs get a male and female boat. And the windsurfers have a much stronger pro circuit than the skiffs ever had, so it's not as if they are bad for spectators.

In the interests of fairness and publicity, we may need MORE board classes, not less. The RSX is often considered to be a spectacularly doggy board but it will probably be around for a while.

What about;

Women's singlehander - Radial
Men's singlehander - Laser

No singlehanded skiff type - it's a tiny area of the sport, with tiny numbers outside the UK. Okay they look good, but the crewed skiffs are there for that. PS I'm not knocking high performance singlehanders, I'm a Canoe sailor

Men's skiff - 49er
Women's Skiff - 49er Sport (OK, I know it's not going to happen, dunno why not) or RS 800.

RSX men (a new form of F42 to return for 2012)

RSX women (ditto)

Tornado

Star - for the big fellas.

470 with at least one female in each crew.


On a different note - why is sailing so expensive to run in the Games? Here in Sydney, we used to get 130+ Olympic boats out training plus the normal weekend fleets of another few hundred, and everyone just used the normal facilities. Then came the games, and suddenly the normal facilities were not good enough.

Obviously there are press and security issues, etc, and host cities want to show off - but couldn't sailing try to bargain for cheaper facilities and keep more medals as a trade-off? The fact that a single swimmer can win half as many events in a single Games as the entire sailing world is just silly.


Edited by CT249

Nope