Where is the Focus for ISAF?
There has been a frenzy of activity as ISAF unveils its submissions for the 2012 comference in Dublin… the first I’ll ever attend.
I was interested enough to read through the submissions to gain an appreciation of what issues would be tackled during the conference.
The highest profile decision to be made is the Presidential election. I have my thoughts but due to a muzzle I won’t be sharing them right now… one is definitely not a skiff fan though, figure out who for yourself.
The second highest profile decision is a massive submission by many countries to replace the newly elected kitesurfing and return windsurfing to the Olympic agenda. I won’t comment on that one for now either, though I will say that both are fantastic sports.
My main area of interest is ‘saving sailing’ so that it stays as an Olympic sport in general. I have heard loud and clear the arguments against sailing… it’s expensive to run, it’s elitist, it has few live fans and smaller TV ratings… these are the massive challenges that sailing must overcome in order to maintain it’s Olympic status.
So I was curious to see what proposals would be put forward to address some of the big issues of our sport… Of the 130 submissions to ISAF here is the breakdown:
- Select boats for the Olympics: 40
- Select boats for the Youth Worlds: 10
- Change/Modify Rules: 20
- Adjusting procedures for judges and measurers: 6
- Bureaucratic procedural adjustments: 10
- Increasing the efficiency of ISAF: 1 (overlapping committee appointments)
- Qualification procedure for 2016: 2
- Use of bibs at events: 2
- Making ISAF conference cheaper to hold: 1
- Giving ISAF control of more teaching courses: 8
- Giving athletes a voice at the table: 1
- Removing athletes existing position: 1
- Specifying scoring software for events: 1