Sorry - I'm a bit over-sensitive on the money-sport issue which in my opinion is a bit overblown here in the US. Seems we've sometimes got some effed up priorities.

As a bit of explanation, my son (16yrs old) is a reasonably good high school gymnast - recently finished 4th nationally in one of his events (mid-30's overall), but sadly that's probably not going to be good enough to take it to the next level. You see, from close to 300 college-level mens gymnastics programs in the late 1960's, there are now only 17 scholarship programs left in the US. This is due to a combination of Title IX (basically equal scholarship opportunity for women) which is/was the result of dominance of Football, Basketball, Baseball - aka money sports. The end result is the cutting or "defunding" of many mens minor sports programs over the last several decades. Therefore, if a student is a talented athlete and wants a chance at a scholarship to pay for University (and avoid huge debt), they go for the money sports where there are 1000's of scholarships available. I'd wager the same phenomenon has sucked the oxygen from the air for sailing as well.

Even at the high school level, schools typically don't offer gymnastics which means we pay for it at the club level - significant expense relative to the tax funded traditional sports.

Fortunately for my son, he does it because he loves it and we can thankfully afford to save enough money for a good portion of his secondary education. But, gymnastics may not be a part of that - perhaps one less candidate on the path to the Olympics...

I am certain this story has been repeated 100's of times for many talented young sailors out there too.