The Royal Yachting Association has ‘released’ its Selection Policy for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
As British sailing’s National Governing Body (NGB) the RYA works with the British Olympic Association (BOA) to determine the athletes who will represent Team GB at the Olympics.
The ‘released‘ RYA selection policy is confidential, and as such can only be accessed through a secure online portal.
It is only made available to those who are eligible to compete for Team GB.
The selection policy sets out the criteria for athletes aspiring to compete for Team GB in the Paris 2024 sailing competition, which is looking to be one of the most difficult the RYA has had to face for some years.
The 12 month delay in holding the Tokyo Games has concentrated the period between Games, reducing both training time and the number of high level event competitions available.
Plus there has been considerable change to the equipment to be used at the next Olympic sailing events.
One class was dropped completely – the Finn heavyweight singlehander – and the separate men and women’s 470 dinghy events reverted to just one mixed -crew event.
Two completely new types of equipment were also added – the Kiteboard x2, and an upgraded foil-board . . . the iQFoil x2 replacing the RS:X board.
This upheaval, following on the pandemic disruption to the sport, seemed a good time for a number of the highly successful British Sailing squad to step away from Olympic competition.
All together this has resulted in a relatively inexperienced squad with a reduced period of preperation time available for Paris 2024.
Fortunately the recent Government Autumn Statement did not take a swipe at UK Sport’s £352 million funding in Olympic and Paralympic sports for the Paris 2024 cycle. So the RYA will be well funded (£22+ million World Class Programme) to rebuild the squad for 2024.
The RYA practice has been to name the first Team GB selections in the year ahead of the Games.
And with the first Paris 2024 sailing events taking place from the Marseille Marina on late July, this would suggest the first selection announcements around September 2023 . . . less than ten months away.
In charge of leading the team responsible for executing the Paris 2024 strategy and building towards LA 2028, will be the recently appointed Performance Director, Mark Robinson.
Robinson replaced former Performance Director Ian Walker who was in charge for Tokyo 2020.
To request access to the Selection Policy document or apply to be considered for the British Sailing Team contact Alex Wardall, the RYA’s Olympic Operations Manager, on [email protected]
The application process will close at 17:00hrs on February 1, 2023.
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