World Sailing Council is to debate the new proposed race formats for LA28 at a special Council meeting in December.
This decision followed the presentation of recommendations by the Events Committee Chair Wolfgang Mayrhofer to the Council on 8 November.
The change of race format for the Olympic classes, particularly with the IOC/OBS focus on creating a made-for-media final race, which requires the first across the final race finish to be the Gold medal winner, has caused considerable discussion among the athletes.
In fact so unusual was active involvement of the athletes, with a Townhall meeting, that it drew comment in the Council meeting of their ‘making waves’ and a ‘dangerous precedent’ with possible future problems for the organisation.
After a period of event trials the adopted formats must be agreed with the IOC in March 2025.
The Events Committee recommendations:
Format – Dinghy, Skiff and Multihull
The proposed format achieves a majority of the World Sailing Board format selection criteria, highlighted by:
- The Olympic Champion will be decided on the final day.
- No medal can be won before the final day.
- All competitors entering the final day will have a chance of winning a medal.
- To maximise broadcast engagement potential, ten nations are competing in both races.
- The final day is optimised for a 52-minute broadcast package.
Dinghy, Skiff and Multihull structure:
- The final day will consist of two, single-point races for 10 boats.
- Nett scores from the Opening Series will carry forward into the final day.
- Scores will be adjusted to ensure no competitor will enter the final day with a gap greater than 9 points to the competitor ahead or behind them.
- No competitor ranked 4th through 10th at the end of the Opening Series, will be more than 18 points behind third.
Format – Windsurfing and Kite
The proposed format achieves a majority of the World Sailing Board format selection criteria, highlighted by:
- Opening Series with Event-specific number of maximum races over three days
- Medal Series on one medal day with:
- Quarter Final (five competitors, one race), followed by
- Semi Final (five competitors, one race), followed by
- Final (4 competitors – first to two wins)
To achieve a 52 minute broadcast window goal, the maximum number of races in the Final needs to be to be a maximum of three. The way to achieve this is to award a “win” to both competitors that have progressed directly to the final from the Opening Series. This also eliminates the problem of “coming in cold” to the Final, which potentially was a big disadvantage to the competitor ranked second in the Opening Series.
The top ten competitors from the Opening Series progress to the Medal Series:
Quarter Final
- Competitors ranked 6th to 10th from the Opening Series compete in a single race.
- The top two ranked competitors from the Quarter Final advance to the Semi Final.
- The remaining competitors are eliminated and ranked 8th-10th overall according to their Quarter Final race rank.
Semi Final
- The Semi Final features the competitors ranked 3rd, 4th, and 5th in the Opening Series, joined by the top two of the Quarter Final.
- The top two ranked competitors from the Semi Final progress to the Final.
- The remaining competitors are eliminated and ranked 5th, 6th and 7th overall according to their Semi Final race rank.
- Advancing two competitors from the quarter and semi-finals is preferred over just one advancing as it significantly changes the tactics and favours a “lucky gust win” which the athletes do not favour.
Final Medal Race
- The Final consists of the top two ranked competitors from the Opening Series and the top two of the Semi Final.
- The 1st-and 2nd placed competitors from the Opening Series begin with one race win each.
- The competitors progressing from the Semi-Final start with zero wins.
- The first competitor to achieve two race wins becomes the gold medallist, which ensures the winner of the final race always takes gold, with silver and bronze decided by the number of race wins, and then by their rank in the last race of the Final.
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