JEAN-MARIE LIOT/DPPI
World Sailing
New discipline new audience
The arrival itself was a little hurried but the opportunity for sailing to showcase the first ever continuous 24-hour Olympic competition is surely not to be missed? The idea that offshore sailing could be an Olympic discipline is not one that drew universal support straight- away, but today the tide is turning. Following last year’s landmark decision, and as details of the
new event start to appear, it is becoming clearer that there are important new opportunities with significant benefits to both the sport and the Olympic Games. Indeed, some now believe this new discipline could provide unexpected opportunities for new sailing nations, while paradoxically also having the potential to be more affordable than some existing Olympic classes. The move is also being seen as having potential to open Olympic sailing up to a broader range of competitors. It is factors like these that have helped to change conventional
thinking by offering a new endurance discipline to the Games, while at the same time bringing the sport of sailing to the attention of a wider audience. This in turn could play a valuable part in securing the future of sailing as part of the Olympic family. The decision to introduce a Mixed Two Person Offshore Keelboat
category for the Paris Games in 2024 was agreed at World Sailing’s 2018 conference in Sarasota. While there is much detail still to be established the intention is to have mixed-gender teams sailing a one-design boat that will be supplied for the Olympic Regatta. National selections will take place in comparable classes more
readily available in the relevant country or region, which is simply representative of the type of boat that will be used during the Games;
42 SEAHORSE
there is no pressure on competing nations to use the Olympic boat. The Olympic contest itself will be a single, sudden-death offshore
race run out of the 2024 sailing venue in Marseille and will last up to four days and three nights. Whoever crosses the finish line first will be declared Olympic champion. The pathway for the new discipline was prompted by some key
factors, as Australian Sailing president and offshore racing enthu- siast Matt Allen, who is also vice-chair of World Sailing’s Oceanic and Offshore committee, explains. ‘Going all the way back to when we were proposing offshore sailing as an event for Tokyo 2020, I think there was a feeling then that it would be a terrific way of showcasing the offshore and keelboat areas of the sport. ‘There are around 70 million people in the world who sail and
around 50 per cent of them sail keelboats. Clearly not all are offshore keelboats, but a lot of people do sail offshore as well, so the whole genesis of this was to create an event that would perhaps start a couple of days before the Olympic Games and maybe finish soon after the opening ceremony. ‘This would be an event that would run through two or three nights
at sea and would be unique in Olympic Games history. This alone would make sailing stand out, but in addition it would offer a range of broadcast benefits for those in other time zones where there may not be any live events taking place during their daylight hours.’ As it turned out, the plans were too ambitious to be delivered
in time for Tokyo 2020, but the idea struck a chord. Looking ahead to the next Olympic Games and given a longer runway, along with France’s traditional enthusiasm for offshore sailing, Paris 2024
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