Olympic Classes for 2012

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 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!