So they have decided to hold it at Alexander Headland. Being held in late July there will only be westerlies blowing, directly offshore, shielded by the high headland. Entry and exit from the water via a surf beach.

Not much thought has gone into it, should be held in Elliot Heads or Cairns.

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airsail said..
So they have decided to hold it at Alexander Headland. Being held in late July there will only be westerlies blowing, directly offshore, shielded by the high headland. Entry and exit from the water via a surf beach.

Not much thought has gone into it, should be held in Elliot Heads or Cairns.

decided already? there's 11 years to go.

Hopefully some logic comes into it over the next 11 years.

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airsail said..
Hopefully some logic comes into it over the next 11 years.

haha ok fair enough. yes hopefully.

It'll be a challenging venue for sure, should be an awesome event!

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airsail said..
So they have decided to hold it at Alexander Headland. Being held in late July there will only be westerlies blowing, directly offshore, shielded by the high headland. Entry and exit from the water via a surf beach.

Not much thought has gone into it, should be held in Elliot Heads or Cairns.

Alex is a strange choice given nobody kites there ever.

Being olympics they will probably run them out to deep water on duckys or something so I don't think that's a factor.

Definitely not all westerlies this time of year, more like a mixed bag. Had some great NE sessions lately and more NE forecast for this avo.

It will probably mean the heavy rail line gets put through to maroochydore, the corridor is there. Coast is crying out for that. So that's a win I guess.

Elliot Heads is awesome for kiting and I'd support it being there. But really if you're offshore in open ocean, anywhere is the same right? Except FNQ where you're thousands of kms from the rest of the olympics...

I kited there a a couple of times on a formula raceboard , Launched a couple of hundred meters north of the surf club , was an absolute nightmare trying to get through the head high shore break.
I do get it though , once you get off the beach and get a km or two offshore it is beautiful place to sail . You have to remember that these sailors will be professionals , and the support crew and boats ect will be everywhere , also look at some of the venues they sail from ATM , some of those spots look sketchy as .

Spectator wise there would not be too many better spots in SEQ.
I think it would be really good for the coast.

I think you nailed it that's why they chose Alex.. spectators. Already the hill is a great gathering point for avo beers and watching surfers.

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KBGhost said..
I think you nailed it that's why they chose Alex.. spectators. Already the hill is a great gathering point for avo beers and watching surfers.

Sketchy conditions - over w/e = Cyclonic swell and S-S.E'ly but went ahead - G8 event.
W/O the swell multiple launch sites would have been open but all went off Spit in Offshore!!
Those race kites all bar one made it upwind to the beach on return - astonishing feats..
This is day 2 & 3 feed...
Not obvious but day 2 from the start/finish boat doing timing - in a trough - tuff gig trying to keep wings in view - the swell was often double over it caused lulls in the wind so coming off foil for the less experienced was another curved ball.





Cheers
AP

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airsail said..
So they have decided to hold it at Alexander Headland. Being held in late July there will only be westerlies blowing, directly offshore, shielded by the high headland. Entry and exit from the water via a surf beach.

Not much thought has gone into it, should be held in Elliot Heads or Cairns.

It's the Olympics, which means for one that it is a CITY that runs the Games, and Cairns and Elliott are not remotely close to the same city as Brisbane or the other cities in the joint bid.

Sports must have media spaces and facilities, lots of security, drug testing facilities, spaces for officials who may need to do more than one discipline, an athlete's village with security, and a lot of other infrastructure and complication. You can't just run around and drop in events in every place that each sport wants to compete in.

The kites are already getting special treatment by not going with the rest of the sailors. How much special treatment does one very small discipline of a small sport want?

How would the kiters feel when they cannot go to the open and closing ceremonies because they are in Cairns or Elliott Heads? How will the coaches and (who may be covering more than one discipline) feel when they have to choose just one discipline to work with?

Do you actually know more about the issues involved in locating Olympic events than the people who do the job?

If the kites don't want to fit in with the rest of the Olympics then fine.... get out of the Games. Otherwise do what every other sport does and co-operate with the organisers of an incredibly difficult event to manage. Kiting should have known that getting into the Games requires compromises and cooperating, rather than changing the entire