Ben Ainslie’s Thought on Olympic Classes

Ben's opinion matters because:

A.  He is a triple (soon to be 4x) Olympic medalist.  That gets him heard.

B. He has more experience of Olympic campaigning than almost anyone else - therefore he speaks with experience.

C.  His brother-in-law is head of the ISAF.  He has the ear of the top man.

I'm not saying that his opinion should matter more than anyone else's, but you would be naive to think it didn't.  If the ECB wanted opinion on how cricket should be organised, would they ask me or Michael Vaughan?

People in the sport like Charles Benedict Ainslie might be biased if certian ways to keep parts of the sport that meet their strengths and eliminate areas that meet there weaknesses.... Not that Charles Benedict seems to have any weakeness.

Where as people who aren't directly involved will have a better idea of what the public want to see.

Quite so.  good luck GBR.

Originally posted by DiscoBall If the cycling (or any other olympic 'kit' sport) was run like sailing they'd all be riding Choppers with carbon handlebars

As I understand it, the peformance you get from recumbent type cycles vastly exceeds that of the conventional style pushbike as used in the games, so that's really pretty much what they are doing...

"Sailing never starts with a 'what would be best for presenting the sport'
clean sheet. There's always this baggage that those who competed and
now administrate just want to minimise change."

Sailing, in the UK, France and Australia anyway, is a much, much bigger
sport than most of the more spectacular sports, and the more spectacular
classes are pretty much the smallest group.

Not many people want to sail them. End of story.

If they don't inspire many current sailors to get into them, why would they
inspire newbies?

Can you tell us the location of any studies or surveys that show that
people are turned off by sailing's current image?

"Where as people who aren't directly involved will have a better idea of
what the public want to see."

How is that?



How often does Olympic sailing come up when you are talking to the
public, day to day?

Does the subject of Olympic sailing come up more often to you and me
than it does to Ainslie, who is probably talking daily to the media and at
corporate events after he gives speeches?

I have still never had a decent answer to this oft-asked question - if fast
boats are the key to improving the popularity of sailing, why are they so
much less popular all around the world, and why are they actually (in
recent years) growing more slowly than slow boats?

There was one Olympic class which was chosen by the sailors - the RSX.
It is probably the most cursed bit of kit around (or it was when I was
racing against it). Even many of those who chose it at the trials abused it
later, because
when they chose it they failed to take into account the difference between
a fragile prototype and a durable product. So the sailors' record of
choosing classes isn't all that hot.




Edited by Chris 249