Andi Robertson The idea on an Mixed Offshore event at the 2024 Olympics is a mouthwatering idea but is looking less and less likely
T
he writing seems to be on the wall as far as the chances of there being a Mixed Offshore event at the 2024 Olympics. It is not that any of the IOC’s concerns about the new event are new or have just been raised with World Sailing, working with some of my French colleagues who raised the question last September there were serious rumblings in the world’s hotbed of solo and shorthanded racing that Olympic Mixed Offshore was at best in for a bumpy ride, at worst could by sunk in the early months of this year. Make no mistake recently appointed David Graham, the CEO of World Sailing, is very much in offshore’s corner. When I asked him last Autumn if there was a chance Mixed Offshore might be under threat he said, “When you look at what happened (the choice of Mixed Offshore for the Olympic slate) there was a democratic process to get that through. That was made by council and ratified at the AGM and so to undo that at this stage I cannot see it. I am new to this game but I can’t see it. And so some of the people who voted for it would have to now be voting against it,” At the time it was predicted by a French insider, “What may well lead to this programme being overturned would be the election of a new president in place of Kim Andersen, who was behind this change. It is not so much the proposals that worry me as the election,” confirmed someone inside World Sailing. “Opponents who hope to get a new president elected, which could throw into question the programme adopted for 2024 by the IOC. Apart from the current president, the three others are ambiguous when asked about this matter. So it could go the wrong way if a new president cast doubts about the programme on offer to the IOC.” “And within the IOC there is ongoing internal pressure in the IOC” the French article reporting “In particular from one of the vice-presidents, the representative from Singapore, Ser Miang NG (former vice-president of ISAF, the former name for World Sailing), who is not hiding his hostility to the offshore event, putting forward
arguments about the costs. “A lot of the world are under financial pressure brought on by the global pandemic and the IOC are not outside of that and so they are looking at ways of reducing complexity and reduce costs for Paris 2024” stressed David Graham. And at the time he told us World Sailing were all the time trying to show how mixed double offshore race is neither complicated nor expensive: “We are talking to them all the time about the entire slate and costs and complexity. Our team has done a wonderful paper for the IOC which shows that this slate is a more simple slate and most cost effective. The number of days are effectively reduced and offshore is relatively simple to run, once the boats are offshore they are offshore. So it is a fairly simple event to run.” So in my mind it is not that World Sailing have been somehow backwards or tardy in their communication with the IOC it is more that they have to meet the IOC’s hard headed one size fits all concepts of universality which are being applied across all the Olympic sports, and there seems no latitude for choosing an event which would actually take the whole sport forwards into a new and exciting direction, one which reflects an increasingly popular momentum which I could only see growing within Olympic sailing and in the sport globally. I dread to think what the alternatives will be. Mixed team racing in Finns and Europes? Please…… That smacks of nothing more than sheer desperation trying to reinstate Olympic classes which were democratically eliminated from the Olympic slate. I was, and still am, absolutely looking forwards to one day seeing some of the biggest names in sailing, past medallists, round the world aces, Figarists, Vendée racers, going racing in an Olympic mixed doubles class on an even playing field in supplied craft. In the meantime I hope that the nations really interested and focused can conspire to produce more and more high quality events, European and World Championships to prove this is a viable and exciting future direction for the sport.
PHOTO: TEAM GB/RICHARD LANGDON
‘I DREAD TO THINK WHAT THE ALTERNATIVES WILL BE. MIXED TEAM RACING IN FINNS AND EUROPES? PLEASE……’
22
JUNE 2021 Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting
ABOVE Could the Finn class be resurrected for Olympics to accommodate Mixed team racing?
ANDI ROBERTSON An offshore sailing expert, few people can match Andi’s insight into the big boat world, both in the UK and globally
