What makes a good Olympic class? What do you think are the important criteria? Is it availability and affordability? Should it be high performance, or maybe low performance? After all sometimes the slower a boat, the more tactical the racing. But then faster boats can be more fun to sail, and certainly more fun to watch.
Is it media appeal? After all, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) say that minority interest sports like sailing and equestrianism need to start appealing to broader audiences to attract greater share of the global TV audience during the Olympic fortnight.
In a little more than two weeks from now, the International Sailing Federation (ISAF) will sit down to determine which will be the categories for the Olympic Regatta in Weymouth, England, in the summer of 2012.
So over the next two weeks, SailJuiceBlog.com will be running a series of articles looking at the Olympic classes, and weighing up the pros and cons of the existing classes – and a few new ones besides. I’d like to hear what you think too, and in the next few days I’ll be launching an Olympic Classes Survey, where you can vote for your most wanted – and most hated – Olympic boats.
Olympic sailing is at a critical juncture. The IOC has handed ISAF the task of whittling down the existing 11 categories that will be represented at Qingdao 2008, down to just 10 for Weymouth 2012.
A game of musical chairs then.
An almighty blood bath, more likely. Have no doubt that this November in Estoril, Portugal, there will be more backstabbing going on than when Julius Caesar unwittingly strolled into the Roman Senate for the last time.
Not only that, but there are a few young pretenders waiting in the wings. At Hyeres back in April, ISAF hosted an Evaluation Trial for a number of high performance doublehanders seeking to win nomination for a new Women’s Skiff category.
After all, the men have the 49er, so why shouldn’t the women have some fun too?
Also, there is a strong Women’s Match Racing lobby winging its way to Estoril this November. They didn’t get very far last time they tried in November 2000. On that occasion the Yngling stole their thunder, but perhaps their time has come.
So, how to compare the relative merits of the Olympic classes.
Well, how’s about starting with participation? Bums On Seats (BOS).
There could be a number of ways of looking at this, but I was looking for some way of making a direct comparison between the existing classes. ISAF’s World Rankings offer a way of analysing the BOS in each of the 11 Olympic classes.
First, here is how ISAF describes the workings behind the World Rankings: “Each competitor counts his or her best seven results over the previous two years. The two year period is calculated on a rolling basis (from today’s date to the same date two years previously). Results less than 1 year old are multiplied by factor 1.5 (Year Weighting Factor) (’YWF’).”
So, a competitor counts his or her best seven results. I’ve therefore made the assumption that the only full-time Olympic campaigners are those who have done at least seven ISAF-graded regattas in the past two years.
It’s not a perfect assumption. After all, Ben Ainslie languishes at 104th in the Finn rankings, because he’s only done two regattas in the past 24 months. By the way, if you were wondering, those two regattas are the Olympic Test Regattas in Qingdao, 2006 & 2007. Both of which Ainslie won.
In the majority of cases, however, the ‘7 regatta’ test is a pretty accurate one. So, below, in order of merit, are the 11 classes with their BOS ranking based on the number of full-time campaigners as at 3rd October 2007:
Bums On Seats Ranking
1. Men’s Singlehander (Laser), 155
2. Women’s Singlehander (Laser Radial), 79
3. Men’s Windsurfer (RS-X), 62
4. Men’s Doublehanded Dinghy (470), 61
5. Open Skiff (49er), 50
6. Men’s Heavyweight Singlehander (Finn), 46
7. Men’s Keelboat (Star), 39
8. Women’s Windsurfer (RS-X), 35
9. Women’s Doublehanded Dinghy (470), 33
10. Catamaran (Tornado), 29
11. Women’s Keelboat (Yngling), 15
And the Bums On Seats winner is….
The Laser, by a long, long way. The only class to break triple figures with a whopping 155 full-time campaigners.
A very respectable result too, with 79 for the Women’s Singlehander, the Laser Radial – especially when you think that it was only ratified as a new Olympic class just three years ago.
Of course, campaigning a singlehanded dinghy is cheaper and logistically much easier than racing a doublehander. For one thing, racing by yourself doesn’t require any social skills! Campaigning a doublehanded dinghy at Olympic level is like being in a marriage. So maybe it’s unfair to compare apples with oranges. At the top of the doublehanded pile is the Men’s 470 with 61 teams, followed by the 49er with 50. These are both very respectable scores, particularly for the 49er which is sometimes perceived as difficult to sail. Then again, was Olympic sailing ever meant to be easy?
What other trends can we spot here? Broadly speaking, it seems that you can expect just over half the number of women to campaign a particular class compared with the equivalent men’s class, ie:
· 155 v 79 in the Laser singlehanders,
· 61 v 33 in the 470 doublehanders,
· 62 v 35 in the RS-X windsurfers.
· And in the keelboats, Star v Yngling, the scores go 39 v errr… 15.
15???
Yes, just 15 full-time teams campaigning the Yngling. Not very impressive.
But hold up. Let’s give the Yngling its due. If campaigning a doublehander is logistically twice as hard as a singlehander, then what about a triplehander? This calls for serious interpersonal skills. Three people on a boat – that’s enough for a mutiny!
And let’s not forget that the Yngling is still a relatively new class. It was voted in just seven years ago. Perhaps it is still only getting established. More of that in a moment.
Let’s come to the Tornado. There’s no doubting that this is one impressive catamaran, with a high fun factor and capable of enormous speeds, but with just 29 full-time teams, not all that capable of attracting Bums On Seats, or Bums In Trapeze Harnesses.
The catamaran community loves being represented in the Olympics. Look at the uproar that US Sailing caused earlier in the year, and more recently the RYA, when they said they wouldn’t be nominating the catamaran for 2012 selection. But on the strength of these figures, can you blame the authorities? Surely participation has to play a part in determining which classes deserve Olympic status.
Come on cat sailors. If you love Tornados so much, then time to put your bums where your mouths are…. Or something like that.
Let’s look at how the other younger classes are getting on.
Even after just three years, the Laser Radial is doing very-nicely-thank-you. A BOS score of 79 compares more than favourably with the Europe, which at exactly the same point in the previous Olympic cycle (October 2003) registered a BOS score of 73.
Another brand new entrant, the RS-X Windsurfer, also compares favourably with the Mistral’s BOS scores in October 2003. The RS-X Men’s score is slightly down from the Mistral (62 v 67), but the RS-X Women’s score is slightly up on the Mistral (35 v 31). So more or less even scores there.
And as a matter of interest, how was the Yngling faring four years ago? In October 2003, there were 22 full-time teams campaigning the Women’s Keelboat. Hardly earth-shattering, but still almost 50% more popular then that it is now! The ladies have voted with their feet. It seems the Yngling’s best days are already behind it. On a positive note, though, if you campaign an Yngling full time, statistically you have a one-in-five chance of winning an Olympic medal! There’s a silver lining in every cloud.
And there you have it. If Bums On Seats is a valid way of determining the value of an Olympic Class, the Laser is a runaway success. As for the Tornado and the Yngling? Could try harder. Expense could have something to do with it, but we’ll deal with that topic another time.
What do you think? If you’ve got a view, and the courage to share it, please leave a comment in the box below.
If this is your first visit to SailJuiceBlog.com, click here to go to the latest posts…
Posted in ISAF Conference, Olympic Classes, Weymouth 2012 | Tags: Olympics, Weymouth 2012, Olympic Sailing, ISAF Conference
(b) include match racing (it’s much easier for J public to understand since the America’s Cup) (c) hold it at a venue with some wind or invest in turbines to make it!
