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Oxymoron – Definition: a combination of contradictory or incongruous words


Two-time Olympic medallist Ian Walker watched a new Olympic sailing future unfold


So how did World Sailing’s council members come to vote in two mixed one- person (kiteboard and dinghy) events for the 2024 Paris Olympics at their mid-year meetings in London and what could those events look like? Not wishing to use my entire allocation


of words to explain the process that is out- lined in World Sailing Regulation 23 here is my brief synopsis of how events unfolded: 1. After considerable work from the Events Committee Working Party it was decided in January that trying to discuss all 10 events at the mid-year meeting would be too complex a task. It was therefore decided by electronic vote of council in February to retain five of the current 10 events. This secured the future of the men’s one-person dinghy (Laser), women’s one- person dinghy (Laser Radial), men’s skiff (49er), women’s skiff (49er FX) and mixed two-person multihull (Nacra 17). In this case retaining the event also meant retain- ing the equipment, except for the Laser class which is currently the subject of a


44 SEAHORSE


European monopoly law anti-trust review (www.sailing.org/news/85910.php#.WxZ Kwq17G1s). 2. As the meetings unfolded there was little discussion about men’s and women’s wind- surfing events and support for them was highlighted by the fact they were being retained in 52 of 56 national submissions. The RSX Class have done a good job of growing participation and building a youth pathway, it is the cheapest Olympic class and crucially is therefore one of the most universal events (number of countries and continents competing). 3. With the IOC’s Olympic Agenda 2020 demanding a more ‘event-based’ pro- gramme designed to attract a younger audi- ence and the popularity of the decision to include kiteboarding at the 2018 Youth Olympic Games, it was a fait accompli that kiteboarding would be added to the slate. So kiteboarding was a certainty, but with a room full of sailors it was unlikely to be allocated two medals. ‘Mixed kite’ was in 29 of the 56 submissions (third-highest total after windsurfing) hence mixed kite- boarding was born. The kiteboarding frat - ernity seem confident that they will make a short-course mixed relay work well. Expect to see foiling boards and very fast races


with lots of action in the change-over. 4. In Tokyo 2020 sailing will have an equal number of men and women competing but there are five men’s events and only four women’s, with one mixed. It was unani- mously agreed that sailing needs to become gender equal at an event level as well as athlete level. This meant that the two remaining events had to be both mixed or one male and one female event. Crucially council could not therefore select a mixed two-person dinghy (470) and a Finn. The Events Committee’s recommendation was to have two one-person short-course dinghy events which would have in effect saved the Finn, given a new singlehander for lighter women and would mean the end of the 470 as an Olympic class. As it trans - pired the 470 lobby on council was too strong to let this happen and so the last two submissions each had a mixed two-person dinghy as one of the remaining two classes. The 470 would therefore lose a medal but be retained as a mixed event (assuming it is selected as the new equipment for this new event!). It also meant the last class had to be another mixed event bringing the total to four mixed out of 10. 5. So now we came to the crunch which was to decide between the two submissions left, which had all of the above events plus either a mixed keelboat, or mixed one- person dinghy. This really came down to a vote between the supporters of the Finn (even though it might have no part in the new mixed one-person dinghy event) versus those of keelboat sailing – principally the USA and Canada. In a surprisingly tight vote (22:19)


RICHARD LANGDON


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