World Sailing President, Kim Andersen shrugs off the open letter from the sailors at the Finn World Masters, blaming Olympic quantity restrictions and requirements.
Mr Andersen also stresses that it was not him, but the decisions of the World Sailing Council and Annual General Meeting that led to the removal of the Finn.
Apparently ignoring the row that erupted over the the voting procedures and the complaints of critical individual votes being ignored. But of course an internal review found no problems!
Mr Andersen also comments that: ‘The actual voting has been consistent in the process with a clear majority from 2017 to November 2018.’
Apparently he ignores the various late ‘Urgent Submissions’ introduced to reverse inconvienient decisions.
His statement that ‘The dilemma for our Olympic venue is that we only have 10 medals and 350 sailors to showcase sailing.’ also conveniently ignores the changes that other Olympic sports have made to introduce modern variations and developments to their events, while still retaining their traditional core events.
This sudden short-sightedness is perhaps because it avoids highlighting the inability of World Sailing to manage sailing’s future as an Olympic/Paralymic sport with any great show of ability?
Instead we are constantly reminded that sailing is walking a thin-line, and at any moment will be swept away by the Olympic organisation if we do not turn our sport inside out to appease them.
As Mr Andersen says: ‘We as a Sailing community have recognised that in order to stay relevant, we need to adapt as a sport.’
Mr Andersen might like to re-read the short story by his rather better known countryman, Hans Christian Andersen, of ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes‘ and just stop and consider!
Read the Open Letter here:
World Sailing President, Kim Andersen, an open letter
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