Ben Remocker, Class Manager for the Olympic 49er, 49erFX, and Nacra 17, has posted a report in the class blog highlighting the tenuous position of sailing in the Olympics.
The report, ‘What’s up in Sailing Politics – The Olympic Vision‘, is isssued ahead of the annual World Sailing conference in Southern Spain in November, with a focus on Olympic Sailing.
World Sailing is presenting an Olympic Vision paper with the aim to align our Olympic strategy as sailing comes under increased pressure from the IOC drive to present all sport as a personal drama . . . the ultimat reality TV.
While the IOC has just announced three sports, Skateboarding, Climbing, and surfing, have moved into the core category and five new sports will be brought to LA2028.
New for 2028 is squash and then four new team sports in cricket, flag football, lacrosse, and baseball/softball.
All the while sticking to its 10,500 athlete limit. so LA will allocate roughly 650 athletes to these new teams sports, with at present no explanation of how that will be achieved.
Remocker sumises that sailing should be expecting to lose another 20 quota spots, but it could be more.
Sailing has already dropped from 420 athletes in 2008 to 330 for Paris 2024.
World Sailing is releasing an Olympic Vision document ahead of their 2023 conference for discussion.
Once the full document is published, we can see how clear the goals are and if a message of urgency to achieve them accompanies the adoption.
But Remocker does not seem to bear much hope of World Sailing rising to the task, based on previous experience of the convoluted committee machine.
A sobering view that may have come too late!
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