2016 Olympics: Sailors of the World - Hang your heads and weep! (Sail-World)

I apologize for my obviously mistaken assumption that conversations can bridge posts in a thread without quoting myself. I know that others here feel it necessary to redundantly quote themselves, and create self-congratulatory "summary" posts every twenty posts or so, repeating themselves ad nauseum. I did not realize this technique was necessary.

My bad. I'll buy an apology beer should you ever come to Ottawa.

Cheers!

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CutOnce


(In answer to your question: The original Olympic games were about competitors, not countries. Sports were about individual athletic challenge, not popularity. Wikipedia reference explaining origin of the Games.)

 

Nonsense.

Athletes represented city-states, not just themselves. Not many people could afford to be in training for many months without some support by the state, or rich patrons.

Nero bribed judges to win a chariot race - and used it to increase his popularity back home.

Successful athletes were given large amounts of money as rewards, especially by their home towns. And poets sang their praises throughout the land.

I think you are imagining an "ideal" Olympics that never really existed. It was probably just as corrupt and nasty as it is now, IMO.

What did Canada do with the millions of Mountie Suits and Beaver costumes after their Olympic experiences? There must be warehouses full of the bloody stuff!

Leo.

 

Thanks to Doug for alerting us to what the men in blazers think would be good classes for 2016.I had rather hoped that by then the sailing world would have asked some searching questions about what benefits accrue to the ordinary sailor from the inclusion of sailing in the Olympics.I would not be unhappy if the ordinary sailor decided that he or she had no interest in the event whatsoever.

 

Looking at racing sports generally (motor racing, Air racing, powerboat racing, sailing events) what draws crowds is close racing. Close-quarters maneuvering, lots of overtaking, loads of skill. Quite what it's raced in isn't particularly relevant. If you've ever wondered why sailing gets a remarkably small amount of TV time for the money spent, it's because anything other than an short inshore race is hugely expensive to broadcast and tends to lose viewers when the racing becomes processional, or takes weeks.

We don't all want the latest £15000 boat in the Olympics, if the racing isn't close. An olympic class boat that people can pick up and compete with for less than £1000 (for an old boat) actually helps the sport much more, as the barrier to entry is reduced. I don't know about anyone else, but I had £15000 I wouldn't be spending it on a dinghy. I believe the vast majority of parents would be of the same mind when their kids said they wanted to race "a boat like the one on the telly".

Tim B.

 

Didn't the Olympics in the first half of this century often come fairly close to that ideal? Sure, there were obvious exceptions (i.e. 1936) but in sailing, at any rate, the stuff I can find about the earlier Games does seem to show a very different attitude generally.

For example, the sailors clearly were amateurs - Elvstrom's bio says that he worked full-time until about a fortnight (if I recall correctly) before his early Games. Peter Mander and Jack Cropp, NZ gold medallists in 1956, built their own boat and made their own fittings while working full-time. Some other Olympic sailors from the '20s to '30s were also true rennaisciance (sp) people like Ella Maillart and Sir Peter Scott. Rather different to today, perhaps.

 

Sadly, my bull-headed persistence and bloody cricket bat aren't enough to kill this vampire hypothesis - look around at most of the forums and media and you see that it just won't die.

Where's me bloody silver bullet?

 

Hi All,
I have not been involved with sailing at an Olymoic level but have been involved with Cycling at an Olympic level and I'm sure the situation is the same. The Olympics is a franchise so to speak and one of its tenants is its about the Athlete not the equipment. Any sport that is equipment "rich" will not do well in the Olympics. The politics of it are that they want the athlete to shine not the equipment. Its kind of lucky that sailing is in the "modern" Olympics and as has been said before it could be deleted if needed. One of the early requirements for an "Olympic Sport" was it could be held in a stadium of which sailing can't. But early events in the 1900's were succussful so they have lingered on. By the way the early sailing was done in 20 tonne keel boats and there were cash prizes for the winners! I used to build high tech bike frames and have supplied many frames to Olympic teams. The Olympics had their own rules for what a frame could and couldn't be etc etc. My belief is that they should turn up and be given a bike. Would make it so much easier. Same as one design in sailing. Another life another story. Peter S

 

Yes. And I believe the poetry competitions required very little in the way of new technology.
http://olympic-museum.de/art/artcompetition.htm

 

Olympics!

"Faster, higher, longer"

"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield"

 

Leo and CT, although eloquent (and poetic) with your criticism of performance not being important - and that the idea has been beaten to death - actually you're missing the ball and have swung the bat 360 degrees to whack your own heads (sudden moment of truth)... because Olympic competition is all about the fastest, highest, longest, most accurate, runner, cyclist, archer, rower, whatever - and Olympic sailing in old boats seems to be a make do situation. Okay, put everyone in one design ... but that OD has to be top of the performance line, just like the competitors are striving to do. Make sense?

 

But, ultimately, it would be just as arbitrary as what they have now.

Now, get a huge bag of money with which to bribe the Olympic poobahs into accepting your suggestion. ;P

Best of luck!
Leo.

 

With equipment that is agreed upon by committees.

If you want world records with no constraints on equipment, I suggest you look to other competitions. The Olympic movement is not going to change quickly enough to accommodate your wishes.

 

Not really, Garry.

"Faster, higher and longer" in the Games always involves restrictions on the technology that reduce performance, often quite dramatically.

Swimming is a contest to find who is faster - but they do NOT allow swimmers to go about 1/3 faster by using technological advances such as the recently-banned suits, fins or a carbon-fibre torpedo enclosing their body.

Running is a contest to find out who is faster - but they do NOT allow runners to go faster by using aids such as the carbon blades.

Cycling is a contest to find out who is faster - but they do NOT allow cyclists to go about 1/3 faster by using the much faster streamlined recumbents.

Archery is a contest of accuracy - but they are heavily restricted, to recurved bows.

Kayaking, rowing, canoeing are all contests to find out who is faster - but NONE of them allow competitors to go around 1/10 or so faster by ignoring the rules restricting equipment. There are, for example, no hydrofoil kayaks or sliding outriggers at the Games despite the fact that they are faster.

As far as I can judge, in most of these events you could go from 11% to about 35% faster with gear that broke the Olympic restrictions. BUT THEY DO NOT DO THAT! Therefore other sports do NOT require that equipment be at the top of the performance line, therefore your analogy is incorrect.

It's not "faster, higher, longer" without rules, or within rules that maximise performance. It's "faster, higher, longer" within rules that dramatically limit the equipment's performance. And that's perfectly reasonable - pure speed is rarely what turns sportspeople on and that is clearly demonstrated by the equipment that they use. Who would bother to sail a multi instead of a kite if pure speed was what turned people on? But many people love sailing multis, because few people find pure speed to be very important.

Arguably, with the 49er and the (former) Tornado, the sailing classes are closer to "the top of the performance line" than other sports.

 

i think most of you are well out of whack
If I were young again , i would be put off but the money needed to race rocket ships
But I would train my butt off in something affordable-- to get to that level
Somebody mentioned the blunting of the javelin, why? they did that so the flamin thing would not fly outta the stadium

 

Probably true - anyone claiming not to be is probably worse than people who acknowledge their problems.

The real issue with the Olympics is that they market themselves as the ultimate every sport competition, and fail to come even close to that standard on many. The Olympics just are not a fit with a sport as broad as sailing. The Olympic formula works well in many sports like track & field, gymnastics etc. - basically the same types of activities done in ancient Greece.

Sports involving ever-evolving technology, high cost equipment, complex venues and high participation cost just do not work well.

In the Olympic movement's grasp for more - more money, more television revenue, more viewers, more commercialization, more prestige - they have over-extended their franchise wildly. And by over-extension they have devalued themselves horribly. The Olympics are not alone in this - just about every professional sport has the same malaise, and is squabbling for the same money in the same market. The Olympics are not pure sport any more - they are packaged professional entertainment for a revenue generating audience.

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CutOnce