Steve,

the hope is that going SMOD will stop the amount of money being spent on gear and gear development. Probably no hope of stopping the bad effects of professionalism or bringing the game back to amateurs. That is not the way the olympic games are headed (unfortunately).

Jeff, the IOC decision is not against cats but against giving sailing back the 11th medal which was removed by a IOC decision in 2003 I think. The base of todays discussion was put together by ISAF back in 2007 when they managed to drop multihulls from the slate of events. That was when the vote against cats was made. This weeks meeting was within IOC where ISAF had petitioned to get the 11th medal back. All water under the brigde now..