Olympic 'finals' proposal

Brave new televised world or the demise of Olympic sailing as the pinnacle of our sport? Personally, I lean to the latter and that is also the view taken in a scathing article by Magnus Wheatley in a well-known sailing newsletter this morning. http://www.sailing.org/meetings/2005november/papers/sub_025. pdf Discuss.

I'd like to know what would happen if ISAF said "OK, we'll keep it as it is and accept that means no televised sailing then". Does that mean sailing gets chucked out of the Olympics? If so, what a sad reflection on what the event is now about. If not, then IMO that is exactly what ISAF should say. The event should be for the sailors. Spectators needs should be incidental.

Originally posted by fizzicist We could probably benefit from ceasing to use boats designed in the 50's

Sorry but the subject of choice of classes has been done to death on other threads. It would be more interesting if we could concentrate on the proposal at hand.

 

Edited by Stefan Lloyd

The problem with a single-race final is that we all know that luck plays a significant part in an individual race. That's one of the good things about sailing; you might not be winning regularly but once in a while, the start comes right, the shifts all arrive at the right moment and you win.

In a series it all balances out and the cream rises to the top, but in an individual race, even I can win sometimes.

So that says, under this proposal, after four years (minimum) of training and preparation, you finish with a glorified lottery. I am staggered that the ISAF can propose this.

 

Take your (1st) point Stefan - but you do get points credit for all the other races prior to the final, so it's not really a lottery - it just weights the final race by a yet to be specified amount.

Conversely, the first person over the line still isn't the winner - so it will continue to confuse the hell out of most TV watchers.  Ie Ben Ainsley won by coming last?    woss that about then?

Maybe traditional racing should be dumped in favour of parallel upwind down-wind slaloms.  Preferably in super-fast, hard to control boats ensuring lots of telivisable wipe outs.  More my kind of sailing. .  I jest .... or do I?

To your 2nd - I think both are important.  Everyone pays for the olympics, so probably have a right to enjoy watching it - and the more that watch the better the funding; plus there's also the worlds for finding the best sailors. 

Edited by NickA