The Rat
When large organizations want to make major changes they rarely do it quickly. Instead, they move incrementally. Just a few little tweaks here and there. Nothing too radical or alarming. Each change is so small it’s hardly noticed. But then, before you know it, the fox is in the henhouse – and it’s too late.
As sporting organizations go, they don’t come much bigger than the International Olympic Committee. They present themselves as the responsible custodians of world sport in general, and the Games in particular. In truth, it’s an immensely wealthy organization wracked with umpteen layers of internal politics, personal ambitions and international enmities. So, when you get even a faint whiff of change in the Olympic air, watch out!
What’s all that got to do with sailing? Pull up a hammock while we explain.
The IOC seems to have finally realized that the Olympics can’t just keep getting bigger and bigger. Every few years new sports have been added, plus extra variations on the core events. The Games are larger, longer, more expensive, geographically scattered, and have lost much of their elite focus. There are plenty of other games in town.
What to do? Well, earlier this month the IOC Executive Board met to consider a proposal that they should stop considering whole sports as “indivisible units” and deal with all competitions separately as individual “disciplines”. Here’s how the official IOC media release describes the proposed change:
“The new methodology would allow the impact of each discipline on venues, operational complexity and overall costs to be measured more precisely. It would also give the IOC greater scope to retain, introduce or remove disciplines without necessarily affecting the entire sport to which they belong.”
Got it? The sting is in the second sentence. There’s a clear purpose behind that distinction.
If adopted, it would allow the Committee to eliminate individual events within a broader sporting group. By convention, the IOC is guided by World Sailing recommendations on class selection, but they have the authority to act unilaterally if they so wish.
Olympic sailing is in a precarious position. It scores near bottom on all the metrics the IOC uses to rank a sport’s appeal – crowds, participation rates, TV ratings, internet hits. There is tremendous pressure on sailing to change the classes and racing formats to boost its profile.
Ditching some sailing “disciplines” would suit the IOC. Two prime candidates are the Nacra (too expensive) and the kites (which are difficult to follow on television and were only adopted because the offshore two-handed idea sank without trace).
This proposal to alter the basis for assessment will be put to a vote at the full IOC session in Lausanne later this week. But implementation is long process. Any changes to individual classes wouldn’t happen until the Brisbane Games in 2032.
Benny the Bilge Rat
