Olympic Sailing Course - How does this sort of thing happen?

[Capn Mud]

Taken from this forum http://livesaildie.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=1116

'Greenhorns sailing in Qingdao - 2008 Training Camp Qingdao China June 2008' - Australian Sailing Team

No this image hasn't been photoshopped, this is what it looked like as the Australian Sailing Team trained for the Beijing Olympic Games.

Seems that someone forgot to mow the lawn!

From Sail-World by Laura Baldwin

240 boats try and remove sea-weed from the Qingdao Olympic course area

Australia's 470 Coach, Victor Kovalenko shared these photos and insight from the current training camp in China.

'As you can see we have one more problem in Qingdao apart of light wind and strong current, it is seaweed. The local government has employed 240 fishing boats to clean Qingdao bay and they are working really hard but... Sailing is almost impossible now!'

Other days the fog has been so thick that a GPS has been needed to find the way back to shore.

470 stars Nathan Wilmot & Malcolm Page probably didn't think they would be sailing in conditions like these when they named their boat 'Dead Calm!'

Surely the ISAF checked out the venue and OKed it right?????????

[wind_apparent]

they need a desert racer with huge floaty tires.... (its the future)

[Landlubber]

One word my friends "China".

Couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery!

[wet feet]

Perhaps a series of races for foilers would help.With the light winds the foils ought to be at enough depth to rearrange the vegetation.;-)

[StrandedMariner]

I am interested to see what will happen during the Olympic sailing events. Qingdao is known for having very little wind, specially in summer.
I never understood why the made the choice for Qingdao. Xiamen or Hong Kong would have been much better for sailing.

[Capn Mud]

A conspiracy theory might be that they would be happy to drop sailing from the Olympics because it is perceived as not very spectator friendly. And a light wind, weed infested course will certainly keep them away in droves I would think.

Light winds also make the results more of a lottery than a competition. And this is meant to be the pinnacle world sporting event? Conspiracy or no it is not good IMHO.

Colour me disgusted.

[StrandedMariner]

The problem with China is that they have a tendency not to listen to good advice, nor learn from other's mistakes.
It's like my taxi driver yesterday here in Shanghai. I point to the right side of the road and tell him to stop, and the first thing he does is taking the left lane.

[gggGuest]

Originally Posted by Capn Mud

Surely the ISAF checked out the venue and OKed it right?????????

What makes you think ISAF had any choice or influence in the venue decisions at all?

[Capn Mud]

Because they are the world body.......

FINA organises world swimming and has considerable input to the Olympics swimming.
FIFA organises world soccer and ditto...
ATP organises would tennis and ditto....

[Landlubber]

I feel so sorry for those sailors that have trained so hard so long, it would be a crying shame if the winner is the lightest crew that can drift around the course.

[gggGuest]

Originally Posted by Capn Mud

Because they are the world body.......

So what. Have you *ever* heard of any venue for any Olympic event being changed from the original bid location as a result of pressure from the World body? Its scarcely the first real turkey of a venue: think of Atlanta.

I imagine the discussion goes something like this...
"We don't think Qindao is a very good venue for sailing"
"Qingdao or nothing - make your choice."
"In that case Qingdao sounds OK..."

[Capn Mud]

Perhaps you are right - though it shouldnt be that way.

I believe that FINA and other world bodies have a fair bit of influence regarding their venues, schedules etc etc because in effect they supply the athletes. World body not happy = athletes wont come = no Games...

Possibly sailing doesnt have this kind of influence though - who apart from people like us would care if it was dropped from the Olympics?