- World Sailing take first step on road to reinstatement of Para Sailing in Paralympic Games.
On Tuesday World Sailing attended a virtual briefing by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) for sports seeking inclusion in the 2028 Paralympic Games in Los Angeles.
Para Sailing was a successful Paralympic sport for five consecutive Games from Sydney 2000 to Rio 2016. The current plan for Los Angeles are to stage 22 Paralympic sports.
“World Sailing has put the reinstatement of Para Sailing in the Paralympic Games at the top of its agenda,” stated David Graham, CEO of World Sailing, who attended the briefing.
This first step on World Sailing’s application to be reinstated includes response to the IPC’s Questionnaire by July 2022.
The decision on which sports will be included in the 2028 Paralympic Games will be made by the end of January 2023.
The process of sports bidding to be included in the Los Angeles 2028 Paralympic Games will follow a four-step process:
- Step 1: IPC initiates the review process. Eligible IFs are invited to fill out the ‘Los Angeles 2028 Paralympic Games Sport Programme Questionnaire’ (2 Feb 2022)
- Step 2: Deadline for IFs to return the Questionnaire to the IPC (4 July 2022)
- Step 3: The IPC Governing Board reviews all interested sports and identifies areas that need additional information and clarification (end of Sept 2022)
- Step 4: The IPC Governing Board determines the Los Angeles 2028 Paralympic Games Sport Programme (end of Jan 2023).
World Sailing set out a series of Strategic Priorities in 2020 to support the growth of Para Sailing by 2023, these are:
- Increasing worldwide participation to 45 nations on 6 continents
- Increasing youth participation (below the age of 30) to 20% of total athletes
- Grow the number of female participants to 30% and, ultimately, to achieve gender parity.
Focusing on diversity, inclusion, affordability, development, and increasing the number of open and Para Sailing events are all part of World Sailing’s framework to build on the success of Para Sailing.
“We strongly believe our Para Sailing strategy is closely aligned to the IPC’s guiding principles and that we can deliver on the criteria set out in the IPC Questionnaire,” said Graham.
“Everyone is starting from the same position, no sports are guaranteed a place and we can absolutely demonstrate that Para Sailing is one of the most inclusive, diverse and universal sports on the planet today. Ultimately,”
He concluded . . . “We will do our absolute best for our community to see Para Sailing reinstated at LA28.”
The Para World Sailing Strategy 2020-23 can be viewed here . . .
Related Post:
Alexandra Rickham Joins World Sailing
World Sailing to focus on reinstating Sailing in Los Angeles Paralympic Games