Open" effectively closes the door in their face. Look ahead, not back.
This "close the door: is BS and is ONLY True when you couple it with the equipment choice.... Pick an F16 boat for open and I BET the Olympic participation will match the number of women pursuing an Olympic dream world wide.....
Realize... If women don't want to play... should you generate an Olympic discipline for them?..... Woman's multihull does not fly in 2010 BECAUSE THERE ARE VERY FEW WOMEN who want to play!... at ANY level of the sport, much less Olympic.
Second point ... our debate is based on our interpretation of the politics of olympic and MNA Sailing world wide ... I have no inside information.... you have a bit more... After the decisions are made... I hope somebody will dish the actual politics and at least attempt to explain why mixed is good for our sport. So far... the ISAF women organization is playing the game BETTER then the Mulithull organization.
Finally, You say..."look forward" and you see a path forward... You have argued... its a start (err BACK in in the show actually), and it's a slippery slope that favors us to increase our Olympic participation in the future.... The problem is that Slippery slope argiments are a numbers game...(not a logical outcome). If we don't generate sufficient women racing mulits world wide... there will be NO drive to increase the sport to Men's and Women's Olympic classes. Consider the total number of Tornado Olympic Teams world wide at the end of the last multi quad .... Perhaps 40... Can you make an argument that with 20 elite women Olympic Mixed team sailors... and No rank and file participation world wide that the IOC would approve this sport?.. ... ... Do your really believe that these numbers warrant two cat disciplines? The women's multi competition simply won't be viable ... Can you make the argument that Olympic mixed will be so popular that participation goes through the roof at all levels.. .... Grade I regattas are closed out ... Hmmm ... Count all the mixed teams at NA's World wide and you don't get enough interest... much less international interest. I just don't see your path forward.
I look forward and see a cul de sac... I see that when you accept that your sport is a country club social sport... (mixed)...never before contested in the world... you have surrendered credibility and you will never recover....
With the AC45s now sailing... WHY would we take the ISAF offer and make this deal....
Bob "Open = Men...." Correlation is not causality.
Nevertheless we probably agree that this is a physics problem... ANY class chosen will have a size and weight optimum... the olympic guys and gals will figure it out in about 2 months.. Will it be biased towards men.... upper body mass, strength etc... Perhaps.. IF you restrict the tweaking within the class.... you narrow the competitive window.. (but increase the cost).... Pick your poison. I agree that men's and women's disciplines is the proper way to go (if there is interest).... Open is a compromise.... Pick a boat that works for small people, big people, what ever ... ... Mixed doubles is a cul de sac with no good outcomes.
John, RE... cut the women some slack... NO! If somebody can come up with some data that shows that elite women sailors are underrepresented at the Olympics... We could actually debate the issue from a common starting point... Fact of life... we have had a 6-4 or 6-4 + OPEN split since the modern games began.... the "women are underrepresented" argument is rarely the major issue or even a strong point ... IN FACT... the women s ISAF committee don't even make that argument... THEY Voted to take a 6-4 split so long as they got match racing... greasing the Tornado's exit from the games. I do sympathize with the elite women currently in the game and recognize that their Olympic careers will time out and a long term solution is NO Solution for them. Looking forwards to the big picture, assuming sailing remains Olympic... we should not compromise and wind up in a cul de sac side show.
ps... I was going for Neanderthal.... the Geico Cave man look works for me!
