Scrap the Nothe Course

I'm just imagining what it would have been like trying to organise a medal kite course race on that course

my 5 year old could understand the Tour de France where the winner may not even have won a single stage

What's the matter with you all? A course with unpredictable gusts and windshifts? Sounds perfectly normal to me! What most of us mortals have to contend with! Personally, I'd have liked to see them having to keep raising their boards to clear weed off after every leg like the rest of us plebs!

Originally posted by Xpletive What's the matter with you all? A course with unpredictable gusts and windshifts? Sounds perfectly normal to me! What most of us mortals have to contend with! Personally, I'd have liked to see them having to keep raising their boards to clear weed off after every leg like the rest of us plebs!

Edited by Bootscooter - 06 Aug 12 at 10:55pm

I can see why most of the olympians hate the Nothe course, as it is so alien to them.  It is tricky, there is no benefit in having a boat speed or boat handling edge, and all the normal tactics and strategy get turned on their head. Many think it is a lottery and should not represent the pinnacle of sailboat racing. There is, however, another way of looking at it - this is just another type of dinghy racing, possibly one that many of the Olympians are not that good at. Sailing in these conditions is not a lottery it just requires a different skill set to succeed. You could even argue that what they need is more of this type of racing so that the "random" element of the racing is negated, ( 4 double points races close in for the spectators). Shurely there are real sailing skills involved in dealing with such variable conditions, spotting gusts, windshifts, protecting your position on the race course. Just think of the English footballers that complained for years that penalty shoot outs were so random that they never even practiced them  and not surprisingly were cr-p at them. Why dont we go for it, and try to excel in these conditions, we should have a head start, with all the ditches and tiny reservoirs that we all learnt to sail on-we've got to able to show the rest of the world how to handle the light fluky and shifty stuff haven't we. In the next olympics we may even hear the competition complaining that," it went all light and flukey on the medal race and the brits won again!!"