Crossroads Moment for Olympic Sailing
by Mark Jardine 29 Sep 14:30 BST
Men's Dinghy racing on August 3 in Marseille at the Paris 2024 Olympic Regatta © World Sailing / Jean-Louis Carli
Perceived lack of attention span, confusing scoring systems, the need for TV to have an understandable format and 'grandstand' moment' has led Olympic sailing to experiment with various formats over the past twenty years, and it is now looking to change again.
It was at the 2008 Beijing Games that the non-discardable double point Medal Race was introduced, aiming to add drama and uncertainty for the final stage of the series. The problem was it was still possible for the medals to be wrapped up beforehand. The answer? Introduce more jeopardy with a Final Series.
We all saw what happened with this during the Paris 2024 Olympics. In the Women's Windsurfing, the British sailor Emma Wilson finished the qualifying series with a massive 31 point lead, meaning she made it straight through to the 'Final', while 10th to 4th placed qualifiers battled it out in a Quarter Final, then the top two from that joined the 2nd and 3rd qualifiers in a Semi Final, with the top two from that joining Emma in the Final. With no time allowed on the course beforehand, this put her at a disadvantage, and she came away with the bronze medal, feeling massively disheartened by the experience.
There are even more changes proposed for the 2028 Games in Los Angeles, which has led to Olympian Micky Beckett being brave enough to put his head above the parapet, with this reflective and absorbing post on social media:
Sailing is changing
Olympic sailing is getting reformed and recycled. What an international regatta looks like is about to undergo the biggest change in decades. As someone who has lived and breathed this sport and doesn't want to see it become a game, the coming changes leave me feeling uneasy.
Apparently Olympic sailing isn't interesting enough and fails to captivate a global audience in the way that the mainstream sports can. If the sport is to remain in the Olympics, and if people like me don't want to be out of a job, then seemingly it needs fixing.
My concern lies with the total lack of consideration for what it is to be a competitor in this sport or someone that aspires to be just that. The wider sport is being overlooked, where the existing link between Olympic sailing and its grassroots is already far too thin. The current proposals, the type which we just raced with at the Sailing Grand Slam Final, will make Olympic sailing wholly unrecognisable to any grassroots participant; a dislocation which I don't think the sport will recover from.
Realistically a large part of the rationale for this change is due to the underwhelming spectacle of sailing at the Paris 2024 Olympics. This wasn't due to a lack of effort on the part of the athletes, organisers or production team, it's because there was usually no wind. No matter how well intentioned, change for the wrong reasons won't fix a problem we don't have.
For some time to win in Olympic sailing, you have to showcase the values that the sport is so well known for. You want to be the best, you want to win? You need to be tough. Not Tour de France tough, but tougher than you look. You need to be patient, accurate and ruthless to a point that few could understand. You need to be able to win a race without any idea when it will start or what conditions it will take place in. You need to endure whilst your legs scream for air so you can play the chess game against the rest. You need to be consistent. These are Olympic sailing's values.
Contrary to what the IOC might think, plenty of people follow the sport because they know sailing provides a unique showcase for people who excel in the aforementioned values. And with a small amount of patience to understand the game, it's entertaining too. Sailing regattas are long because the weather is variable, preparation for an event is to learn how to sail in all conditions, not gamble on one race in one condition.
Regardless of the method by which it is decided, there will always be medallists and a winner. The question that is being asked is 'how do we choose our winners'? Who is the champion of the values that sailing requires?
If the winner becomes so because they qualified to a winner takes all race and luck shines upon them that day, as will happen if insufficient time is given to scrutinise their ability, then the competitors will be the first to know the raw injustice of it. Spectators will know because simply put, they aren't stupid. They want to see a competition, not a lottery. And most importantly, the people who really matter in all of this, those we inspire to go out, go on the water, leave their phone behind and take on an adventure, they won't buy what we're selling.
In the pursuit for drama to cater for an audience with such supposedly short attention spans, there is a guarantee of creating random outcomes with the mistaken notion of selling jeopardy.
The Olympics itself is the pinnacle of raw human endeavour where the very finest athletes in the world excel at something surprisingly relatable. Within that, sailing is unique, it must embrace that and not apologise for it, we should focus on telling the story, not changing it.
SailGP is a monumental spectacle taking place in some of the best venues in the world. Where that comes at the cost of racing quality, the ebbs and flows of fortune of different conditions are negated by the year that it takes to qualify for the grand final. If the Olympic race course is a much-hyped and poorly conceived 'stadium venue' with just one broadcast window to differentiate between 10th and 1st in each class, something has gone seriously wrong. Olympic sailing must do its utmost to remain something which the grassroots of the sport will recognise, appreciate and aspire to take part in.
Sailing is the freedom to explore and drive your boat years before you could a car, it's unique in its ability to provide purpose and skills to anyone at any age, who may find themselves without the direction they need in their life. There are no genetic prerequisites that the elite end of all other sports will require of you, there is a place for everyone.
The sport will only ask you one question.
Do you care?
A hugely powerful post by a sailor who grew up sailing Toppers at Solva Sailing Club, a small club on the south side of St David's Peninsula in Wales, making his way to the top through hard work and dedication, but never forgetting his roots. Micky personifies what it means and takes to be an Olympian. When he speaks, we should all listen closely.
The idea that a live scoreboard can't be added to a broadcast is laughable in this day and age, updating viewers with the cumulative points based on current positions in a race. The technology is there, and relatively cheap. Every boat at the Olympics is already fitted with a highly accurate GPS transmitter, so it's basically a software solution already used in many fleets.
With this, I fail to see what is confusing for viewers. As many have pointed out, a number of highly successful sports are calculated on a cumulative series - Formula 1 and Golf being obvious examples. Football (or soccer for our American friends) has league titles decided over an entire season, and the success and popularity of the English Premier League shows the format is clearly working, even though titles are often decided before the final matches.
Similarly, a regatta series does mean that the medals can be decided before the final race, but doesn't this just highlight excellence? Surely this should be recognised and rewarded, rather than letting Lady Luck have more and more of an influence on proceedings.
John Gimson put it so succinctly on social media when he wrote, 'Would we decide the winner of Wimbledon on just one game?'. Think of it in those terms and it really does make the format changes look ill-conceived.
Sailors are not disposable assets who can be expected to commit years of their lives to become the best at their sport, only to have their chance of glory, on the greatest stage of them all, whipped out of their hands in a lottery.
As any business owner knows, having a single client accounting for a majority of your company's income is a huge risk to the viability of what you do. If that client renegotiates terms, or pulls the plug, then everything can go in an instant. World Sailing does have other revenue sources, and David Graham is doing an incredible job of sorting out the mess that he inherited there, but the IOC and the Olympics continue to be the main revenue stream for the organisation.
This situation makes the whole viability of World Sailing beholden to the IOC, and sailing continuing to be an Olympic sport. The right decisions simply cannot be made if demands are made which cannot be countermanded. It puts World Sailing in a very difficult position, but not an impossible one.
My research on other sports forced to change format by the IOC found that Modern Pentathlon had the equestrian jumping component replaced with an obstacle course, while the re-introduced Cricket will use the Twenty20 format, but the last time it was in the Olympics was 1900. Boxing and Weightlifting faced pressure to enact governance reforms, and Rowing has a new 'Beach Sprint Rowing' discipline replacing lightweight double sculls. I cannot find any sport where the demand for change is as profound as that suggested for sailing's scoring system. If you're reading this and know of one then please do email me.
I do take issue when I hear the demand for short-format, bite-size solutions, not just in sport but across many facets of life, citing this perceived lack of attention span. While I recognise the detrimental and addictive nature of 'doomscrolling' on social media, I continue to have many long and meaningful conversations with people of all ages, which completely counter the argument.
It was recently suggested to me that all social media videos should be six seconds long, as that's how long people were 'engaged' on their Instagram reels. My reply was that creators needed to make their reels more engaging. I feel the decision-makers in sport are being influenced by this kind of 'statistic'. A push towards soundbite, snappy, instant reward systems at the cost of recognising consistency, and rewarding skill over luck.
Are the lunatics running the asylum, or am I (and it would seem, many others) just not moving with the times?
Olympic sailing is at a very dangerous crossroads. Either it can step back from introducing these changes, with World Sailing explaining to the International Olympic Committee why a series of races is the fairest way of determining a winner, or it can go down the soundbite and instant gratification route. Further embracing the later will result in hollow victories and disillusioned sailors, who will inevitably choose different pathways for their incredible talents. In my opinion, Olympic sailing, and the whole sailing world, will be all the poorer for it.
Mark Jardine
Sail-World.com and YachtsandYachting.com Managing Editor