Hmmm.

We are lucky to still be in, remember this is the Olympics that kiting was to be IN and windsurfing dumped. Until it was shown the vote was corrupt as blazes, backed with Branson's money and committee members not knowing a vote to include kiting was a vote to throw OUT windsurfing. Anyway, history.


In about 1997 -1999 Formula was developed so as to replace boring course racing with hopefully fast planing windsurfing that is more exciting.
Olympics mob rejected it as they want to be able to run it in zero to 1kn as many locations don't have wind.

Now they have included surfing! To attract the interest of young'uns apparently
Well hang on....... London, Beijing much good for surfing were they?
How can they say no to planing windsurfing (needing a mere 10kn) based on the fact some olympic venues don't have wind................ and then include surfing which plainly is also very dependent upon conditions?

Lets get planing windsurfing back so we can keep it in and keep the young'uns interested. And this seems to be a chance to fight again for a fast class with box rules not one design.

Thoughts?

about 5-7 years ago, Olympique Federation was seeking to have younger viewers...so they were asking to bring new ideas and sports into the olympics, such as skateboard. Surfing federation didn't want to push to much...lately yes..but maybe it's more because some got wave pool to sell? However...during that period I send emails to all windsurfing company and asked them to group together and push for indoor windsurfing. One sail company was the only one who replied...and a magazine. They both pointed at the same direction, the idea was great...but...RS-X is Under pryde who is a sailing company(yacht)...and the sailing federation is the responsible for our sport at the olympics...and both would not push too much....that was kind'a what I read beetween the lines.

RS-X is quite challenging and to be an olympian windsurfer is a hell of sacrifice to my own opinion and indoor windsurfer could be also another discipline. If swimming can have back, crawl, butterfly, brest, medely, 100m, 200m, etc...well, we sure can have RS-X and Slalom and jumping indoor! ;-)

^^^ Yes
rather frustrating to have PWA people do a LOT of work to develop a new olympic class, cut off and told to get back in their box as one design class will always remain...... then few years later a new one design class (RS:X) but the same refusals about Formula as they wanna run in 1kn .......then a few more years later they put sports in that violate their "rule" about it being able to be run anywhere in the world (surfing)

BUT maximum points to the Olympic windsurfers, the fittest athletes around

After reading these posts I have an even lower appreciation of the processes they use to include/exclude sports. They really have a predudice against some sports. Apart from what we have been hearing on this post, the sport of squash is still the only racquet sport to be excluded. What makes that ridiculous is that table tennis is included. Windsurfing is is just another sport suffering from how ignorant officials make decisions. The media also have a bit to answer for because they fail to report or give fair coverage across all sports. For example, today they are going on about how the wind is disrupting the rowing, but missing the opportunity to televise some exciting sailing. I do agree that a fleet of windsurfers pumping on their sails lacks excitement. Those races are on par with weightlifting or hammer throwing...hang on, those sports are still Olympic sports!

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MarkSSC said..
After reading these posts I have an even lower appreciation of the processes they use to include/exclude sports. They really have a predudice against some sports. Apart from what we have been hearing on this post, the sport of squash is still the only racquet sport to be excluded. What makes that ridiculous is that table tennis is included. Windsurfing is is just another sport suffering from how ignorant officials make decisions. The media also have a bit to answer for because they fail to report or give fair coverage across all sports. For example, today they are going on about how the wind is disrupting the rowing, but missing the opportunity to televise some exciting sailing. I do agree that a fleet of windsurfers pumping on their sails lacks excitement. Those races are on par with weightlifting or hammer throwing...hang on, those sports are still Olympic sports!

The other thing that I don't buy is the argument that windsurfing looks boring on TV. We can do amazing footage with drones today, right up with all the action and with great vision. Maybe it is time for someone to do for windsurfing what Warren Mitchell's films did for snow skiing and snowboarding. Interesting hey, surfboards have been around for years yet it is the newcomer, snowboarding, that has the Olympic status.

remember when Aust was the only country to vote for formula wind surf in the Olympics

Remember when we had Aust windsurfers at the Olympics before formula windsurf
lol

forget Summer Olympics, forget winter Olympics.

we want the WINDer Olympics

I'm a keen surfer and enjoy watching it too. However I agree that it's a dumb move to include it in the Olympics. Even when the the Olympics is hosted in a city with a coastline it's likely to result in surfers riding mushy, crap waves which don't showcase surfing well or surfers' talents. Rio would be a case in point.

I don't think windsurfing can hope to get much more exposure via the Olympics though - perhaps if it was held in a really windy city on planing boards it would get a bit more air time but I wouldn't hold out too much hope (I'm guessing the Olympics don't give BMX a big uplift). Swimming seems to have a monopoly on TV coverage.

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Mark _australia said..
Hmmm.

We are lucky to still be in, remember this is the Olympics that kiting was to be IN and windsurfing dumped. Until it was shown the vote was corrupt as blazes, backed with Branson's money and committee members not knowing a vote to include kiting was a vote to throw OUT windsurfing. Anyway, history.


In about 1997 -1999 Formula was developed so as to replace boring course racing with hopefully fast planing windsurfing that is more exciting.
Olympics mob rejected it as they want to be able to run it in zero to 1kn as many locations don't have wind.

Now they have included surfing! To attract the interest of young'uns apparently
Well hang on....... London, Beijing much good for surfing were they?
How can they say no to planing windsurfing (needing a mere 10kn) based on the fact some olympic venues don't have wind................ and then include surfing which plainly is also very dependent upon conditions?

Lets get planing windsurfing back so we can keep it in and keep the young'uns interested. And this seems to be a chance to fight again for a fast class with box rules not one design.

Thoughts?

Sorry, Mark, but my thoughts are that you are coming from a very biased viewpoint without looking at any facts. You show it when you declare that Formula replaced "boring course racing", which is entirely your own opinion and is NOT the opinion of most of the people in the world who actually do course racing (I know, I did a worldwide survey on the subject). Most people in the world who do course racing do it on longboards or hybrids, and they do NOT go out and choose to do a boring sport - they do it because they love it and prefer it to Formula (which is also great).

I don't understand how you can say "how can they say no to planing windsurfing (needing a mere 10kn) based on the fact some olympic venues don't have wind?" It's pretty obvious why they have to say no to a form of competition that may not be able to run at all. Exactly what do you want to happen - people to spend millions training for four years and then to sit around for a week and go home because there hasn't been enough wind?

Thirdly, there are many, many more "young 'uns" around the world who demonstrate their interest in competing on hybrids and longboards than in shortboards or in kiting, despite the lure of the world cup and other events. The Techno fleets are very big. Significantly, though, the number of young 'uns competing on shortboards is microscopic compared to the number of kids racing Optimist, Radial, 4.7, Feva and 420 dinghies. The number of kids racing cats is also very, very small.

What that seems to indicate is that cliches to the contrary, most kids aren't all that much into extreme sports - a fact that any check on surveys of sports participation will show us. Therefore the idea that kids would move into windsurfing if it was 'more exciting' doesn't add up. If speed was what they wanted they would all have moved from Lasers and 420s into 29ers and cats and boards, and they certainly have not.

If kids did want speed, why would they get into a sport that most of them will rarely be able to do because they don't get enough wind? It's not 10 knots very often in a lot of places in Sydney a lot of the time, let alone the vast majority of the USA, Europe or Asia. Even the RSX (a board I hate) is faster in 9 knots than sitting on your bum getting frustrated is. "Hey kids, get into windsurfing so you can sit on your bum" isn't the best slogan in the world, but that would be the reality most of the summer in Bremen, London, New York, LA, etc.

Finally, there is no way that a box rule class will get up in the modern Games because only a couple of countries can afford it. For an example, go back to 2000 and the Brits decided that they wanted their own mast for an 11' dinghy. They didn't want to join two bits of alloy together to form the mandrel, so they just went out and bought a one ton block of alloy and CNC machined away all but about 11kg of it. They then made their own custom-made custom-designed wing masts and sanded them from the inside to get them just right. Each mast cost (IIRC) $20,000.

That is just one idea of the enormous amount of cash that Australia and the UK are willing to spend, and it's completely unproductive. That class got thrown out of the Games and a one design put in its place because all the other countries thought that such development was ludicrous and unfair.

As another example, the British track bikes at the 2012 Games cost $165,000 each, or about 16 times as much as a normal top-level track bike IIRC. There is no reason why a full-on techno war on boards would be any cheaper than a techno race on bikes, so you'd could be looking at $150,000 for a board, once they are priced to allow for F1 wind tunnel testing at $20,000 per hour, CAD design etc. Do you actually think that Malta, the Maldives, Mali and Mexico are going to vote for a sport like that?

I don't want to be insulting, but working out what class should be in the Games isn't something that just comes with a bit of wishing and brainstorming. The reality of the situation has to be considered, and doing some research would help.

^^ Not insulting course racing, not at all, so sorry if you took it that way. I am having a go at the IOC's excuses for sticking to a one design class (pushed by the IYF???) many years ago. Those excuses look silly now that surfing was added

My point is simple - planing racing is more of a spectacle than pumping around a course. We all know the latter is harder, but it is not watchable.

And when people tried to get Formula up, it WAS denied as it could not run in veryyyyyy low winds.

So to then add surfing, that can't be done on a lake, is an insult, as it contradicts the IOC's decisions about us previously.

That's all. Observations...

But I don't agree on the $$$$ issues you raise.. If there is no way it can run without people making crazy excessive components then the PWA would not run also...
Even then, IF they think it would be an issue in the olympics, have a homologation rule like rally cars where if you don't make X number of units for the public you can't use it in competition.

But the surfers aren't saying "we will only compete if the surf is good", which is the equivalent of saying "we will only compete if the wind is good". The surfers and IOC both know that there's a good chance they will be competing in thigh-high dribbles, not sitting on shore waiting for six footers to roll in. They seem to accept that being in the Games means getting out there on schedule when the cameras are rolling, not when the conditions are fun to go out in.

Secondly, surfing has only been added for Tokyo 2020; it's not a permanent addition so won't cause as much angst for countries that can't compete.

Thirdly, there's plenty of evidence that the major Olympic teams spend much more money than pros do on kit. The pros are limited by the fact that the manufacturers are there to make a profit and to make gear that can be sold commercially. The big Olympic teams don't have to make a profit, don't have to make stuff that can be sold commercially, and have a huge budget.

Take cycling again. The Tour de France is the biggest annual sporting event in the world. The top cyclists earn salaries of around $6 million each and the industry sponsors include manufacturers like Giant, which has a revenue of over $2 billion. The number of bikes that Giant alone produces each year is 250 times as many boards as Starboard produces each year. And yet despite being a vastly bigger sport than windsurfing, cycling didn't spend the sort of money that the British Olympic team spent on their bikes. As another example, dinghy sailing may be a bigger market than windsurfing, but no one spent $20,000 per mast until the British taxpayer funded it through their Olympic team.

The Australian taxpayer spends an average of $49 million per Olympic gold medal, so sports that look like pulling in a few medals don't struggle to get government funding that would dwarf what the windsurfing industry will spend. Other countries are aware of the issue and they will not let the Brits and Aussies and a few other countries spend millions to get a technological edge.

Homologation is one route, but it's not that easy. Rally cars are no longer homologated, apparently because it means that winning manufacturers had to lose huge sums building homologation specials that not even those interested in a performance car actually wanted to own. Cycling always required bikes to be available to the public -it's just that no one defined "available"...... And homologation has other traps; we can't build a Raceboard in Australia because of the homologation rules. Instead of levelling the playing field, it can tilt it even further.

Ps - calling something boring is normally seen as an insult.

They still race formula ?

Love reading your passionate articles on the merits of 0-10knt 'sailboarding' Chris, it's great that you know what you love and enjoy.
And there is lots of merit on your points, except you always reference 'sailing classes and groups' as some sort of bench mark for windsurfing??

But I would confidently predict that if you got the total sales/models of all the main manufacturers of 'windsurfing' over the last 20 years I'd be suggesting that 'planing board' sails would 'massively' outweigh 0-10knt boards. If your 'world wide survey' proved that everyone likes windsurfing in course conditions in 0-10knts , not the fun action end of the sport that we all think of then I'll eat humble pie for breakfast lunch and dinner.
Action sell's, ask any marketing guru a 'video' presentation is much more powerful than a still image, 0-10 knts is the still image.
so action and great images even if they are far off the real world is the way forward...surf brands choose epic conditions in their promotions..not sloppy onshore 1ft stuff..for a reason... its the dream that is sold, not the real world grind! Sell the sizzle not the sausage!

the decline in the sport isn't 100% related to +10knt sailing...lots of factors, kiting being a big one.

The greatest thing about the windsurfing at these Olmpics has been 'action and colour' it's been great to see those big boards zooming around looks great to the public, not ploddingaround and pumping in 0-5knts... just a bloody shame that the stupid Aust system didn't allow any Australian entries into it, especially when we had a extremely competitive female athlete that would have given it a real crack.
The next generation foil/windsurf looks great for the Olympics in 5-30 knts and if windsurfing was in or out of the Olympics don't think it would really make any difference to the sport.
Cheers

Thanks, Jonesy. I definitely didn't mean that most people prefer windsurfing in under 10 knots. It was " the opinion of most of the people in the world who actually do course racing". I did the survey with members of national windsurfing associations from various countries in response to an IWA claim. The point is that most racers are not high-wind fanatics who think that course racing in light winds is "boring", and the number of people who regularly race in light winds is higher than the number who regularly race the classes that only race in a breeze.

I reference sailing, but also cycling, SUPping, canoeing, etc, because it seems that the best way to learn is to look at other sports as well as our own.

We'll have to disagree about action selling, or rather what it's selling. Showing an extreme sport may sell Red Bull, but it doesn't sell people on the idea of getting into the sport. The sports that people actually do are very different from the ones they watch. Look at team sports - netball and soccer are miles more popular than rules or rugby but they get less airplay. Lots of people watch car racing, but in terms of people actually participating it's about the same size as rowing and scuba, which almost no one watches. Very few people watch hockey and lots of people watch league, but more people actually play hockey than league. Sailing gets great publicity with the Sydney-Hobart, but almost twice as many people paddle canoes, kayaks and dragon boats which aren't really action sports.

This is a pattern repeated around the world and across time; the same thing pops up in Europe. The guy who used to run the major sports marketing and participation survey in Australia used to say the same thing - watching sport doesn't get people doing the sport.

By the way, the same thing happens at the Olympics. The ratings for each sport can be found at

stillmed.olympic.org/Documents/Commissions_PDFfiles/Programme_commission/RIO2016_International_Federations_Report.pdf

The "action" sports don't get more viewers, and they don't get more participants. They often seem to be bigger than they are because it's easier for the media to just chuck in a radical pic or a story about the latest high-tech stuff than it is to do an interesting story about the grass roots activities that most people are actually doing.

Cheers

Yeah good points, especially the watch V participate...who in their right mind would want to run head on into 110kg Rugby front rower!
in amongst that I think the secret is the 'organised regular' sport activity for success, eg weekly netball, footy etc

RQ in QLD a breeding a new generation of windsurfers in Brisbane through their regular weekly set up they have started...but my money is when the students master the basics and move through the progressive levels they will want to pull off a massive jump in the waves or blast along for miles at top speed over disciplined course racing...but I could be wrong:)

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JonesySail said..

... just a bloody shame that the stupid Aust system didn't allow any Australian entries into it, especially when we had a extremely competitive female athlete that would have given it a real crack.

What was the reason we don't have competitors? Sorry if that has been discussed somewhere already.

Promoting sailing is not high on australian sailing agenda
victor and that condy fella want a very small team
but they have there favourites
they set a very high standard for the sailors but not them selfs
australian sailing is very well insulated
the stink will never go away

It seems to me a major problem is the constant changing of the classes in windsurfing.

In my opinion, Olympic windsurfing, especially so in Australia, will die if they keep changing the class every few years.

The constant changing of the class, increase of costs attendant on it, makes it harder for people to choose equipment and compete in country, particularly in Australia where the classes are now confined it would seem to an Eastern States enclave for elites.

On the other hand will the "new" convertible RSX increase the appetite of more sailors around Australia to adopt the class in more States particularly across the board.

For example will we see an RSX division in the Ledge to Lancelin one day ?

This is the third Olympics that the rsx has been used

I meant to say every few olympics.

Surfing will see Pool Surfing in spot where you can't really surf probably. Push for indoor windsurfing instead of ocean windsurfing. Keep RS-X on lake, ocean, river...but a big jump windsurfing and slalom racing with music, laser light...would be a good show and Rio already has a pool with green water...it's even more punky!

I am not sure how Olympics contribute to windsurfing popularization.
How lay back person could learn anything, if me specifically searching couldn't find even few minutes of video footage
from windsurfing at Olympics.

Just few shoots, photos and a lot of talking about nothing on YOutube ! If that YouTube was invented to stream still photos ?




Just type" Rio "Windsurfing " for any windsurfing video from Olympics.

Where are all those drones, XXI century technology, 4k cameras
if everything we could see is some score points result , fine printed somewhere.

I wish to be there with my MAcroBoat to shoot whole hours of raw video and post online for everyone as you have experience to be there.

In the times that the most unusual event - meteor strike, plane crash, tsunami, sudden explosion, UFO and aliens walki our streets , have hundreds video recordings on mobile phones , I could not find a minute of video footage from RSX racing at Olympics in Rio !!!

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Macroscien said..
I am not sure how Olympics contribute to windsurfing popularization.
How lay back person could learn anything, if me specifically searching couldn't find even few minutes of video footage
from windsurfing at Olympics.

Just few shoots, photos and a lot of talking about nothing on YOutube ! If that YouTube was invented to stream still photos ?




Just type" Rio "Windsurfing " for any windsurfing video from Olympics.

Where are all those drones, XXI century technology, 4k cameras
if everything we could see is some score points result , fine printed somewhere.

I wish to be there with my MAcroBoat to shoot whole hours of raw video and post online for everyone as you have experience to be there.

In the times that the most unusual event - meteor strike, plane crash, tsunami, sudden explosion, UFO and aliens walki our streets , have hundreds video recordings on mobile phones , I could not find a minute of video footage from RSX racing at Olympics in Rio !!!

Hi Macro, there are snippets here : 7plus.com.au/ , then select sailing

Tried everything , got doughnuts ! Mabee in three months I could lean forward and watch YouTube .

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Surfinfreak said..

Hi Macro, there are snippets here : 7plus.com.au/ , then select sailing

sorry mate, but still couldn't find a single second of video windsurfing on your link

But here is link to RSX guys from championship in Takapuna after hours ( World Championship events).
I was so impressed with skill of this guys jumping on our borrowed gears to enjoy everyday sailing in the bay .
Video is 10 years old, but still fun ... this French Guy just after their races jumped on our boards and sail for a while...
(6.2 sail 25+ ktn wind at the bay ... quite amazing because minutes ago they have been racing on their 10-12 m ?? RSX deep in the bay, not in sheltered here close to beach)

On the 7 app as a premium customer, you can access the sailing videos, including the RSX men's & womens.
As a Telstra customer it's a freebie vs paying $20 or so
however....it don't work. I managed to watch the first couple of races, but since then no links have worked.
I emaiiled the help place, to be told, subscribe to premium!.. They don't read the emails, just send a canned response.
maybe after the olympics the videos will work.
The RSX sailing I saw was great, with excellent commentary too.

i always felt that sail boarding died to the public when the companies, magazines & shops ALL pushed short board sailing. If you had a long board you were looked down on. Even my mates did that to me, I never got into short boards. I remember Middle Park beach , on port Phillip, in the early 80's having hundreds of boards on the weekend. Every one sailing in all winds. Nothing like a topless sailor on a sunny day :-)) but who wants to sit on the beach in 20knt plus? The above scenario can be applied to other sports that followed. I think the wind sup will help a lot to bring back the general public to the sport, just for summer fun.

Hi Macro, from that link, select Home, then scroll down to sailing.
Then you can select highlights (if you don't have premium) of the RSX sailing on different days. The page isn't very user friendly, but by selecting 'previous' or 'next day' you can watch different highlights.

Hope this helps.

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blazing928 said..

i always felt that sail boarding died to the public when the companies, magazines & shops ALL pushed short board sailing.

Quite right IMHO, but back in the boom days a couple of mags did specifically raise concerns about just pushing shortboard sailing.

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AUS1111 said..

JonesySail said..

... just a bloody shame that the stupid Aust system didn't allow any Australian entries into it, especially when we had a extremely competitive female athlete that would have given it a real crack.

What was the reason we don't have competitors? Sorry if that has been discussed somewhere already.

No one achieved the very high results in preliminary regattas that Yachting Australia requires. They no longer send people in the hope that the experience will help them later. They are interested only in medals and will specifically say that they don't care at all about grass roots sailing or overall development of youth.

The way yachting Aust handled some classes was nothing sort of disgusting
why was the Finn coached sacked and then got a huge pay out