Women's High Performance Dinghy Evaluation Event - ISAF Mid-Year Meeting
Published: Sat 12th May, 2007
Women’s High Performance Dinghy Evaluation Event
Concluding a few days before the 2007 ISAF Mid-Year Meeting, the evaluation of a possible 'Women’s High Performance Dinghy' took place in Hyères, France. The mission of the evaluation was to determine whether there is suitable equipment for a Women’s High Performance Dinghy event at the Olympic Games.
A positive yes was the answer transmitted to the ISAF Council by Dick BATT, Chairman of the ISAF Equipment Committee, when he made his presentation on the Evaluation Event.
The evaluation was to identify equipment which would meet the criteria of being a two-person dinghy for women with a combined crew weight of 120-140 kg, able to sail faster off the wind than the wind, and with a target price of EUR14,500 ready to sail.
ISAF evaluated other criteria on the six boats which presented themselves, including performance, design and build issues, class association and cost, and all six boats met the criteria.
This conclusion enabled the Events Committee and Council to include a Women’s High Performance Dinghy in their deliberations on the events for the 2012 Olympic Sailing Competition.
As the evaluation held in France was predominantly in light winds, a second evaluation event will be held later in the year, most probably in September 2007 in Great Britain. Full details will be made available on www.sailing.org.
2012 Olympic Sailing Competition – Events
Expected to create much debate, the determining of the list of possible events for the 2012 Olympics, was in fact a very straightforward and practical discussion.
For the 2012 Olympic Games, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has endeavoured to contain the number of events and the total number of athletes. To achieve this, several sports have had to reduce their events and/or their athlete quotas. For sailing, this has meant one less medal, a reduction to ten medals from the current 11.
ISAF will decide the final ten events for the 2012 Olympic Games at the 2007 ISAF Annual Conference in November. The aim at the 2007 ISAF Mid-Year Meeting was to establish a list of possible events for the 2012 Olympic Games, in order to provide guidance and a basis for initial discussion prior to November 2007.
Council identified the following possible events for either men, women or open categories:
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| The Events Committee met on Friday 4 May © ISAF |
List of Possible Events for the 2012 Olympic Sailing Competition
| Men | Women |
| Windsurfer | Windsurfer |
| One person dinghy | One person dinghy |
| One person dinghy - heavy | Two person dinghy |
| Two person dinghy | Two person dinghy high performance |
| Two person dinghy high performance | Keelboat |
| Keelboat | Multihull |
| Multihull - open or men |
This list of possible events does not preclude any other events from being added to the list being considered in November 2007 and any additional event proposals may be made through the usual submission process.
All events proposed by International Federations are required to meet criteria set by the IOC. Supporting the Olympic standards, ISAF’s seeks to select events, and subsequently the equipment (which will be selected in November 2008), which support objectives, including:
- Must allow athletes around the world, male, female and of different size and weight, to participate
- Must achieve the current IOC objective of the minimum level of participation for women
- Must give the best sailors in each country the opportunity to participate in readily accessible equipment
- Must combine both traditional and modern events and classes, to reflect, display and promote competitive sailing
Within the ten events, ISAF will need to decide the ratio between men’s, women’s and open events. Meeting before the ISAF Council, the Events Committee considered a proposal to introduce an equal ratio of five men’s and five women’s events. Whilst this initiative was in principle supported as a goal to be achieved in the future, Council agreed that the direction for the 2012 Olympics will be four women’s events and either six men’s events or five men’s events and one open event.
The question of a 'fleet' or 'match' racing competition format for the keelboat event was discussed and will be finalized in November 2007. However, for the purposes of event descriptions, the event if selected would be known as 'keelboat'.
Full story can be found here
JMG