Click here for ISAF's Olympic Comission draft report.

A transcript of the Multihull mistake forces ISAF Olympic overhaul article follows:

Sometimes a major tragedy is needed to prompt a major change. The death of five sailors in the 1998 Sydney Hobart race prompted major changes in offshore racing safety regulations. The removal of the fastest and most exciting boat, the Tornado multihull, for the 2012 London Olympics may in the long term be the trigger that changes the face of sailing world-wide over the coming decades.

The widely criticised decision for the multihull removal was made at the 2007 ISAF Annual Conference in Estoril, Portugal. Faced with a major backlash and at the same time threats to the place of sailing on the Olympic sporting roster, the 2008 Madrid conference recognised the need for an overall strategic plan. Rather than enduring more disastrous ad hoc decision making they therefore set up the Olympic Commission.

Phil Jones (AUS), Technical Delegate for sailing at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games and CEO of Yachting Australia since 1997 and the chairman of the Commission, talked to Sail-World today soon after the Olympic Committee report was published.

‘It wasn’t the 2007 multi-hull decision on its own. In 2004-2005 ISAF told the IOC it was going to make the sport more attractive in the Olympics by introducing faster and more exciting boats. Very clear direction. And then of course, two years later they decide that they were going to take out the multi-hull.

‘Now whether you believe or not you will make the sport more attractive by introducing faster more exciting boats, that is not the question. The point is, you can’t tell the IOC one thing and then two years later do something diametrically opposite. That just demonstrates you are not working through any kind of plan.

‘Now we have one!’

At the 2010 mid-year ISAF conference in Hungary last week the Olympic Commission presented their initial report.
At the end of the detailed two and a half hour presentation, Göran Petersson (SWE), President of ISAF, said: 'Is there anybody here who thinks that doing nothing is an option for us?' Not a single hand was raised.


ISAF Olympic Commision – Report to ISAF Executive Committee May 2010 ISAF
Recommended as a Draft Report for wider consultation

Executive summary

ES.1 In 2002 the IOC noted that, when compared with other summer Olympic sports, sailing had a high number of athletes and events in comparison to its broadcast revenues and spectator appeal. In addition the cost and complexity of the operations of the sailing competition presented challenges for the development of the sport. As a result the IOC reduced the number of sailing events and athletes.

ES.2 Since then IOC has introduced a process for systematic review of the Olympic Programme, and has developed a set of 33 criteria to be used to assess the strengths and weaknesses of each sport, and the value that each sport adds to the Olympic Programme. The 4-yearly publication of the IOC review enables IOC delegates, ISAF and sailors, and other sports to compare how well each sport meets the IOC criteria.

ES.3 More recently IOC President Jacques Rogge stated that 28 sports is the maximum for the summer Olympics, and that for its process of rejuvenation the IOC has to have a system of elimination and entry. 'And in future' he commented, 'that is what we are going to do on a regular basis. At times we are removing one sport and adding another one'. We have recently seen this with the removal of baseball and softball, and the introduction of golf and rugby. There are many other sports now seeking to become the next new Olympic entrants.

ES.4 Remaining an Olympic sport is critical to ISAF, and to the growth and development of sailing globally. The IOC provides ISAF with 65% of its income (2004 figures). Probably more significantly MNAs and sailors benefit financially too through support from NOCs and sponsors; the Commission estimates this to be worth over €100m annually - and this does not include the industry, including manufacturers and classes, that supports Olympic sailing.

ES.5 Sailing has historically had good links into the IOC, and will be making its 26th appearance in the Olympic Programme in 2012. Sailing scores well against some of the criteria, but is currently weak in other important areas such as spectator and broadcast revenue, and costs. Sailing is also strong in Europe in particular, but is much weaker in emerging areas such as Asia and Africa.

ES.6 To secure its position as an Olympic sport, ISAF needs an overarching Olympic strategy, rather than one-off initiatives, that will improve its performance against the IOC criteria and maximise the value that the sport adds to the Olympic Programme. If ISAF does this, ISAF will become stronger, and the sport, sailors and MNAs will benefit. If ISAF fails to do this, the IOC’s policy of Olympic sport selection and de-selection will make sailing progressively more vulnerable.

ES.7 The Commission has identified 5 core segments to this overarching strategy which link to IOC criteria: increasing universality (global participation); expanding Olympic qualification opportunities; building the popularity of the sport for media and spectators; improving the ISAF event structure; and enhancing sailing in the Olympic Games.

ES.8 In each case the Commission has analysed sailing's strengths and weaknesses, and made specific recommendations which the Commission believes enhance the sport while remaining true to its fundamentals.

ES.9 Across these recommendations the Commission encountered consistent themes that should be reflected in ISAF's future Olympic decisions:

ISAF should expand the reach and appeal of sailing - to emerging nations and sailors, and to spectators and the media

ISAF should reduce costs - for sailors and MNAs, for event organisers, for IOC and the media

ISAF should build more consistency and continuity to our Olympic decisions, giving MNAs better return on their Olympic investment, and providing sailors a clear pathway for sailors from junior to youth to Olympic

ISAF should focus Olympic strategy more on youth, and encourage adoption of more exciting (for athlete and spectator) events and equipment

ISAF should introduce more structure to the annual calendar of sailing events.

ES.10 Taken together, the Commission believes its recommendations provide ISAF with a clear vision for sailing in the Olympics, and a clear strategy for achieving this vision. The Commission is ready to support the Executive Committee in considering the allocation of responsibilities, timelines and the financial implications of implementing the various recommendations.


The mission for ISAF

To strengthen the position of sailing in the Olympic Games.

To leverage sailing in the Olympic Games in a way that serves to grow interest and participation in sailing as a global sport.

To limit cost and environmental impact in achieving our goals.


Vision for sailing as an Olympic Sport

Building Popularity

Through easy to understand events, good live presentation, high quality production for television and on-line distribution, assisted by the application of the latest tracking and other technology, and broad coverage in other media, Olympic sailing is an attractive, quality sports entertainment property to the benefit of all stakeholders
Increasing Universality - Our sport is widely practiced globally by people of all ages and abilities and of both genders, on inexpensive equipment available around the world. There are clear and accessible pathways for young people from local to regional, international and Olympic competition and our sport is a core part of all major Regional ‘Games’

Expanding Qualification opportunities

Our qualification system provides opportunities for the best sailors from each nation to participate at the Olympic Games and provides continental representation. Local competitions ensure that the system is as widely accessible as possible at reasonable cost to participants

Improving event structure

The structure of our events clearly identifies our champions and provides cost effective pathways for athletes and MNAs to prepare for the Olympic Games, whilst encouraging the global spread of the sport through local opportunities to compete and providing our best athletes with a platform to generate income through commercial support

Enhancing the Olympic Games

The pinnacle event every four years, the Olympic Games demonstrates the diversity and skills of the leading young sailors from each nation. No athlete has an equipment advantage. We showcase our sport in a format that provides entertaining and enjoyable coverage to the large live and remote audience that is attracted through previous exposure to our sport

Where from here??

Phil Jones continues ‘So, we obviously have to do something. And I think we made a good start. Now we are inviting input from various International authorities and classes. We will refine that and make a clear plan to move forward.

‘At the time of the 2008 Olympics there were 126 MNA’s (Member Nation Authorities); by comparison Football (soccer) the World Game, has 208 countries competing for 32 places in the World Cup.

‘The interesting thing is that the IOC consists of a number of nations who participate in the Olympic qualifications and this is the benchmark, not the number competing in the Olympic games ... that is pretty significant isn’t it?

‘There are five IOC continents – Africa, Oceania, which is the smallest of the continents, the America’s, both North and South (the IOC counts it as one (1) continent), Asia and Europe.

‘When you look at the IOC distribution of membership there are more African nations in the IOC than any other continent. And so if you, and again some of the comparisons are interesting, if you look at Europe in 2008, (they had in the IOC) there were 49 members. In ISAF, there were 46. In other words there were only three nations that ISAF didn’t have in membership in Europe.

‘If you look at Africa there are 53 IOC members and 15 African MNA’s, and the IOC considers that where that ratio is worse than 33%, you basically have low membership in a continent.

‘Asia is slightly less of a problem; 44 nations in the IOC and 25 ISAF members. So you know we are just over 50% of the IOC memberships.

'We know where the potential is, the key is what we do from here...' stated Jones.

In Parts 2 and 3 of this Olympic Commission report analysis we will look at what can be done in the short and long term, the reaction from key players and more...


by Rob Kothe & the Sail-World Team Share 10:38 AM Wed 12 May 2010 GMT

The IOC reiteration of its 2002 stance on keelboats in section CS10 is pointed rebuke of the ISAF and the MNA's support of these expensive boats as an Olympic class. (The draft went so far as to actually highlight this section. Rather obvious for such a political document.) Will the ISAF/MNA's finally 'get it' that these boats are essentially non-viable as an Olympic class?

The letter seems to be an ultimatum by the IOC; either the MNA's and the ISAF embrace the IOC requests in a positive way, or sailing may forced into esoteric Olympic sports oblivion. The writing seems to be on the wall for the MNA's to make the sport more visible and exciting, or lose out on Olympic participation. I Hope the ISAF and the MNA's will institute plans to both increase the visibility of the sport, and to raise it's level of excitement to the general public.

The internet, tracking technologies and portable camera technologies, and exciting platforms may greatly facilitate the goals advocated by the IOC. However, this requires a unified vision and commitment by both the ISAF and MNA's, and a desire to experiment, attract and implement technological solutioins and sponsors. Additionally, a willingness of the staid sailing community to expand the sport in more publically accessible ways seems to be inferred by the document.

In short, the IOC seems to be saying 'find a way to fix it, or lose sailing as an Olympic sport.' What can the catamaran community do to help?

The answer is NO!

The vast majority of sailing organizations are oriented towards keel boat/yacht racing. That is why you will have a big problem changing the culture of keel boats in the Olympics. The dominant view of the majority of sailors is that the Olympics are an intermediate stepping stone in the sport.... not the pinnacle. They don't WANT to see the Keel boats go away from the Olympics. IMO, they see the role of the Olympics is simply to feed talented sailors into the real sport of racing these big boats.



This has been the IOC request for years... YET...
The ISAF woman's committee voted overwhelmingly to have keel boat match racing rather then TWO events in High performance skiffs and catamarans for 2012.... (This is the point of view of the athletes... not the old guard running ISAF)

The IOC is not going to be impressed with 40 year old women wiggling the stick on Elliot's . The Olympic vision is for youthful athletes competing for the pinnacle of the sport.... Not a warm up for some variation of America's Cup Match racing without the spectacle.

How big of a stick does the IOC have to smack the ISAF and MNA's to get with the program and change their stripes???....



65% of the money that funds ISAF is from the IOC and this is a pretty big stick... But... probably not big enough to change the international mindset and culture. One of the reasons that the USSA did not go all out for multihulls was that the private US funding was primarily focused on donations to keel boat racers in the Star. In a choice between a multihull and a Star... The USSA went with the money and their athlete strength in Stars.

This is a catch 22... if ISAF moves to fast spectacular youthful boats... it will loose the support and interest of the majority of sailors in the world. EVEN If they change equipment to implement.."fast and exciting and youthful" .... then poor countries can't play and you loose another key factor for Olympic inclusion.

The challenge for Olympic Sailing is much more then 'No Keel boats' and putting the catamaran back in the mix. I think the IOC is asking the sailing community to change it's stripes for inclusion in the Olympics ... We have been white washing this zebra to fool the IOC for years but it won't work anymore... (Dumping the Tornado was just stupid if you wanted to keep fooling the IOC).

The Olympic Movement has taken off and competition with other sports for entry has increased. Perhaps the traditional sport of sailing is just not a good fit for the Olympics in this enviorment.

Will the sailing community change and support the IOC demands.... or will we run the sport without the Olympics?

I agree with a lot of that, Mark. Mainly, the mainstream USSA / ISAF folks aren't viewing this as multihull sailors, so their idea of making it more exciting will be MUCH different than ours.

You don't need any more proof of this than to look at the comments from the vast majority of sailors after this last AC cycle. They can't wait for the AC to get back onto monohulls so the results are closer, and therefore, more exciting. (Again, their view, not mine...)

I don't expect anything to change. The mono-minds will find a way to appease the IOC, and keep the keelboats in place.

Mike

Good point about the America's Cup aftermath.. giving you the prevailing mindset that mono's are better.

Perhaps the Brits will nail Olympic coverage in 2012 and find a way to make it interesting to the general public.

Otherwise, I just don't see it... Fool me once... shame on you... Fool me twice........

The IOC is faced with an expensive sport with no support from Africa AND it's one of the oldest demographics in the Olympics and no facts on the ground that the sports wants change.

How do you spin that?
(Maybe the ISAF leadership has lots of dirt on the IOC and that will keep us in the games... otherwise... poof!)

allow weapons, and mines into the sport, that will increase views . or the very least, greased up water-melons.

I don't know HOW they'll do it, but I have absolutely no doubt that they WILL.

For example, up to now, they have no shame in using the convenient excuse that building "all the infrastructure" (which really isn't much) is a necessary investment so they can have Paralympic sailing.

Again, I'm not saying that it's bad to have Paralympic sailing (I actually think that's one of the best sports going), but this is the type of argument they make to support keelboats.

Personally, I think they should build the facilities for the Paralympics, and still keep keelboats out of the able-bodied Olympics. After all, it's not like they're using the same boats for both events. Of course, that line of thinking won't win any elections...

Mike

Nice post! The Blue Blazer crowd may think that big boats are the real deal, but anyone that actually sails competitively knows better. Additionally with their membership dwindling in drastic fashion, the center of power and vision for the sport may be changing. I see an opportunity for a change, but it requires a vision that will be unpopular for the reasons you cite.

As for 40 year old women in the Olympics not being exciting, bite your tongue! Foxy Dara Torres won a silver medal in Olympic swimming!

My opinion on ISAF since our brief visit to the World Sailing Games in 2006 has not changed and it goes like this - screw ISAF. It is a ridiculous bureaucracy and deserves what it gets along with US Sailing and their love of 5kt leaners.

Multihulls need their own international organization and an ear within IOC. Sailing as it is today should be dropped from the Olympics.

"Multihulls need their own international organization and an ear within IOC."

+1 One way to do that is to improve the average skill level so that it more closely approximates Olympic competition. To do that sailing, specifically catamaran sailing, needs a standardized skill set that can be quantified and measured.

I agree, the best thing for the Cats would be to gain distance fron the monoslugs,(not hard) let them get kicked out of the Oly's and then make our own run for the Oly's along with some of the other more exiting boats. IE-Cat, Moth, 29'r, 49'r, sail board, Kite board, etc. They don't look at us as sailors, we dont look upon them as interesting. So be it!
Perhaps were fighting the wrong battle.

Well said azcat, without Tornados I won't be watching the Olymics anyway so let sailing get kicked out then theres room for an organised approach on fast, spectator friendly boats.

I think that to satisfy IOC criteria and get multis back into the Olympics, the event will have to be some sort of exhibition of cat sailing and not the pinnacle of our sport any more.
We will end up with some sort of short course/slalom easy spectating race on something like Hobie 16s. A bit like the snowboard-cross races at the winter olympics. you can watch a whole round of heats in an hour and understand what is going on.

Two points

All of this WE talk.... as in WE should tell ISAF to get lost and WE will negotiate with IOC... is silly.

Fact of life...the providential WE just does not exist in the Catamaran World. Take a look at your existing catamaran associations... It's the same people, year after year. (god bless them) ... Somehow you expect these people to now have the energy to run the sport at the Olympic level?

TeamVMG makes a great point.... If the effort (by ISAF) to get cats back in the Olympics forces the invention of a novel sailing format... (like VMG's short course/slalom)...

Will it be worth it?

The olympics would be a quirky side show that distracts every four years and just sucks up lots of money (IOC $$$ and Sailing supporters $) to fund the sailing industrial complex. Hard to understand how that would be a good thing for the sport.

I continue to think that the multihull council's approach of working with ISAF is wise... I think they will uphold the integrity of our sport in these negotiations /advising. If the IOC just decides that Sailing is not a good fit for the summer games, So be it... We will then have to step up and run the sport at what ever level we can using our own money.

+1, nailed it Mark!

First off, ISAF and integrity don't belong in the same sentence. Second, WE is who we are . I disagree with the idea that affiliations with organizations which do not support the multihulls are somehow better than no affiliations at all.

Once those ties are broken I do believe that there would be people who would step up to the plate and organize us. We're talking about sailors worldwide after all and not just us lazy pokes in the US.

And if not, then WE deserve what we get. At least it won't be because of some political screwballs who are choosing classes solely based on whose kids are sailing a particular boat.

I agree with Mark. I do not see any significant difference between this ISAF/IYRU reply than the last couple I have seen except for the unified plan. I don't have any real hope that the unified plan will provide any improvement because they same groups and poiltics are still in charge.

Let me add a couple of things I heard last year. The groups that work with the IOC in the various sports are big because they have the IOC money. For example have you ever heard of the #2 Associations in Track and Field, Swimming, or Sailing?

So lets suppose ISAF's new plan really PO's IOC and they decide to take all their all their money and find someone that will give them what they want.

We are not it. At least I am not the person the IOC is looking for. If anyone reading this is a teenager with a cool story for TV speak up but I doubt there is anyone in this group that meets IOC's expectations.

So what does IOC do? Recognize a International group of collegiate and youth sailing groups and fund them directly(With France as the core or the model?). Now the IOC recognized sailing group looks like track and field and swimming. This new group would find a way to allow "their stars" that have graduated to compete. The IOC would require a financial plan to spread the money around and a media plan. Given a $100 million a year, I think it could be pulled off in 4 years.

We need to watch for something like this. I think only France has a youth sailing ladder system that includes multihulls. It would suck if they ended up sailing Opti's, Laser's and 420's

Remember this is an extreme case. IOC would only do this if they wanted to keep sailing and were convinced ISAF would not do what they wanted. However they could do something close to it, by reducing ISAF to a funding source for the groups they want.

Olli,

Even if we do get organized and get enough clout so the IOC will listen to us I'm not convinced we will get the type of racing we want. I really do suspect the IOC will go the directing TeamVMG described and is that a goal we want to work towards? Speaking for myself I'd rather spend my energy elsewhere.

Also ALL large organizations carry some level of corruption and a national/international multihull organization will have the same issues. Some classes will be favored over others and those lesser appreciated classes will cry foul. No, burning the house down and starting over is not an answer.

Do you really think you'll get a following for a plan that basically says 'burn it down, someone else will figure out how to rebuild it'?

Guys, please...

There is no "#2" that's even close to ISAF. If ISAF blows it, sailing is DONE for the Olympics. IOC simply isn't going to be looking for a "#2" organizing autority for sailing. There is a very long line of other sports on the doorstep, with FAR more organization and money than anything a #2 sailing group has on the table.

Mike

Forget we for the moment. What do YOU want? Specifically.

Mike, catamaran sailing is DONE for the Olympics. I've no interest in the remainder.