Is the Olympic Sailing medal becoming just a participation trophy? – Matt Sheahan

What ought to an Olympic medal symbolize? Is it nonetheless sport’s final accolade? Is it an indication that you simply’re one of the best on the planet and have devoted your whole life to proving it? Or is it extra of a blue Peter badge, a affirmation that you simply took half in a chunk of sporting media leisure that you ought to be pleased with?

As we head in direction of the following Olympic Video games regatta in San Diego there are a rising variety of sailors who’re extraordinarily fearful that the medals in 2028 will symbolize extra of a memento for turning up fairly than a celebration of being the world’s finest.

It’s no secret that Olympic Crusing has had the sword of Damocles hanging over it for many years. An costly, sophisticated sport that also isn’t as inclusive as the fashionable age requires has been a tough promote for a very long time.

For years the game has resisted a category cull to rationalise the general fleet and produce the numbers right down to extra economically viable proportions. You possibly can argue that it ought to have led the best way and merged the genders for the entire double-handers to maintain courses and disciplines whereas lowering the pinnacle rely. And although this has occurred within the 470s and Nacra cats, the game has launched the equal of BMX bike and skateboard classes within the foilers, within the hope these extra street-style courses will attract an enormous new viewers.

I’ve nothing towards foiling boards or kite foils – they’re thrilling – however these new courses haven’t introduced spectators and supporters within the form of numbers that can flip across the financial fortunes of Olympic Crusing. And neither will altering the medal racing format by lowering it to a single, brief, winner-take-all remaining race between the highest 4.

Apparently, that is what could possibly be on the playing cards for Los Angeles. I’m advised there are plans to scale back the fleet racing levels beforehand to simply three days with no reserve or lay days – which absolutely doesn’t assist to even out the spikes in climate and fortune that always affect our sport. And all within the identify of making a larger sense of jeopardy to make our sport extra thrilling.

Actually? Extra of a lottery by the sounds of it. Think about when you turned up at your nationwide championships the place you’d labored onerous at constantly delivering the factors throughout the week solely to be advised that the factors buffer you’d accrued counted for nothing when it got here to a shot on the trophy.

That’s successfully what occurred to British iQFoil sailor Emma Wilson, who was 31 factors forward within the video games final yr. We all know how that performed out for her… a bronze.

Absolutely what would assist to get crusing again on observe can be to take the racing to a venue that has a status for breeze on a stretch of water that may address a wide range of wind instructions and that isn’t hopelessly compromised by being too near the shore the place a couple of thousand folks can watch.

Article continues beneath…

If we’re speaking about crusing on the Olympics needing to be a sport that will get talked about and watched on TV for a world viewers, a couple of thousand on the seaside isn’t going to maneuver the needle in terms of balancing the prices of placing it on. It strikes me as odd that at a time once we can movie crusing just about wherever whereas relating the motion with trackers and on-the-water commentary, we select to maneuver the racing to inside shouting distance of the shore – why?

After what was clearly a disastrous sporting broadcast in Marseille for the final video games it appears like there are some fairly drastic adjustments being thought of. Nevertheless it additionally sounds just like the Olympic broadcasters are having an enormous say in how the game will look going forwards and, regardless of having labored in and seen the pressures that TV faces to convey crusing to our screens, I don’t assume that’s the reply.

The tv world itself is going through huge challenges as audiences head to different platforms and media, and I don’t consider it’s in the fitting place to inform a sport the right way to conduct itself. Since you then danger creating one thing that bears little resemblance to the game as its fans and grassroots contributors understand it – and then you definately danger shedding the help of a group that needs to be the core supporters.

Think about a future the place we solely have one race to determine the Olympic Video games outcomes. Is that this actually what successful an Olympic medal is all about, or are we step by step guaranteeing that crusing is pushed out of the video games?

For those who loved this….

Yachting World is the world’s main journal for bluewater cruisers and offshore sailors. Each month we now have inspirational adventures and sensible options that will help you realise your crusing desires.

Construct your information with a subscription delivered to your door. See our newest affords and save not less than 30% off the quilt value.

Word: We could earn a fee whenever you purchase by hyperlinks on our website, at no additional value to you. This doesn’t have an effect on our editorial independence.