The Guardian on sailing & Olympics

[dgadee]

But your first paragraph - aging sailing community - is precisely the reason why things like Olympic sailing are very important to get some profile and encourage young people to take up sailing.
For young people sailing their own Optimist or Topper is far more fun, and accessible, than sailing on an expensive yacht. Often the boats are club or centre provided for initial learning.
Some aspire to go racing like their hero's. Others are happy messing around at their club. Either way they are the sailors and boat owners of the future - even if many have to give up (or just do occasional charter) in the young family / growing career stage.

Yes, you see loads of kids on toppers. Then ... they discover women and drink and give up boats.

 

[flaming]

Yes, you see loads of kids on toppers. Then ... they discover women and drink and give up boats.

These days the kids on boats are just as likely to be women.

 

[dgadee]

These days the kids on boats are just as likely to be women.

True. But they might find women, too.

 

[flaming]

True. But they might find women, too.

They might. But the very fact that a lot of activities, not just sailing, are becoming more and more mixed is surely a good thing for retaining kids into their teenage years.

 

[dgadee]

They might. But the very fact that a lot of activities, not just sailing, are becoming more and more mixed is surely a good thing for retaining kids into their teenage years.

It's beyond the teenage years that are the problem.

 

[Wansworth]

It's beyond the teenage years that are the problem.

We don’t have belonging society anymore

 

[dunedin]

It's beyond the teenage years that are the problem.

I suspect a LOT of us on here raced dinghies in our teenage years, perhaps also at university - then gave up active sailing for a while due to pressures of work and families. But the interest remains and start getting more active in bigger boats as kids get bigger and mortgage gets smaller.
Still important to get the interest at a young age, as the boaters of the future.

 

[Gurrig]

Yes, you see loads of kids on toppers. Then ... they discover women and drink and give up boats.

Most sailors I have met of the male variety have also discovered women and drink and continued to sail. Same happens in many other sports.

 

[benjenbav]

The cost of equipment pales into insignificance compared with other costs of Olympic participation.

Take the track events; even the 100m. All you need is a pair of sneakers, right?

Well, yeah.

Plus to give up employment in order to train all the time, a running coach, a conditioning coach, a nutritionist, a psychologist etc.

Someone’s paying for the athlete and the entourage. Taxpayers, whatever. It doesn’t come for free.

 

[boomerangben]

Guardian reporter: mission accomplished and pay packet justified. S/He got people talking and perhaps increased visits to their online journal.

To be frank most sport is more fun to do than watch but having said that it is good to watch people achieve and see their hard work pay off.

But if you want to bash elitist then there are other sports and the whole inequity of wages in our country that I would have thought been easier money than bashing sailing and horses in the olympics.

 

[dgadee]

Most sailors I have met of the male variety have also discovered women and drink and continued to sail. Same happens in many other sports.

And what about the ones who dropped off from sailing. I presume there are many more of them than remain active.

You see pics of young competitors - loads of them, both boys and girls - and I wonder where they all go. As I said, boat ownership age is rising across all of Europe - by 10 years in 10 years.

 

[flaming]

And what about the ones who dropped off from sailing. I presume there are many more of them than remain active.

You see pics of young competitors - loads of them, both boys and girls - and I wonder where they all go. As I said, boat ownership age is rising across all of Europe - by 10 years in 10 years.

Just because they aren’t paying doesn’t mean they aren’t sailing.

We have 4 student types on the crew this year.

 

[Laser310]

i agree that the other sports listed in the article should be dropped, and I could come up with a few more

...not sure about sailing though

one of sailing's claims to stay in the games is that (supposedly) it was in the first modern games.

I have read that the IOC likes sailing, because the medals get spread around; some countries that rarely win any medals have won sailing medals.

one point they - the guardian writer - make is that it's not spectator friendly and the rules are difficult to understand. I agree.., but who says every event has to be for the spectators? Why can't it be for the participants?

 

[westhinder]

So they start turning them into competitors at 14 - but what age did they start skiing at? Its like taking a cyclist or swimmer at 14 and moulding them - you’ve got a very difficult learning curve if they couldn’t cycle or swim before they went to secondary school - you can probably make them good, with a lot of effort, but it will be really difficult to make them great when the competition have been doing it since kindergarten.

As an aside, Remco Evenepoel, gold medal in both time trial and road race cycling, started competitive cycling at 17. He had been a football player in top youth teams in Belgium and the Netherlands until then. It is fair to say he probably learned to ride a bike before he was 6.

 

[dgadee]

Just because they aren’t paying doesn’t mean they aren’t sailing.

We have 4 student types on the crew this year.

I remember most boats had good crews in the 1980s and 90s at Regattas around Belfast Lough. There were also big boats with big crews. Very difficult to get the same involvement these days so you must be doing something well.

 

[Puffin10032]

And what about the ones who dropped off from sailing. I presume there are many more of them than remain active.

You see pics of young competitors - loads of them, both boys and girls - and I wonder where they all go. As I said, boat ownership age is rising across all of Europe - by 10 years in 10 years.

There was a thread on the Y&Y forum about this some years ago. Apparently, the RYA periodically go around hoovering up all the young sailors they can to feed their youth squads. The vast majority of those children, of course, get quickly cast aside. The experience of posters on the thread was that most of those youngsters gave up sailing, often leaving the clubs with virtually no youth sailors.

I'm sure we've all read, with horror, the revelations of bullying, abuse and exploitation in some Olympic sports (cycling, gymnastics and swimming come to mind). I've not heard anything to suggest that things are that bad in sailing but the way the RYA act is clearly unacceptable.

Personally I've love to see sailing dropped from the Olympics. I think it would be the best thing to ever happen to the sport. It certainly hasn't harmed the Stars or Finns that they're no longer Olympic classes. They still attract top sailors. More importantly they're being sailed for the right reason - for the love of the class - rather than as a piece of mere sporting equipment in the hands of someone looking for Olympic glory. Life is much better outside of the 5-ringed circus.

 

[ylop]

one point they - the guardian writer - make is that it's not spectator friendly and the rules are difficult to understand. I agree.., but who says every event has to be for the spectators? Why can't it be for the participants?

Well I think there are two points:

1. The Olympics is the world’s biggest sporting spectacle. If it’s not a spectacle does it belong? You can still do it at world champs but it costs a fortune to put on the olympics so selling tickets and TV rights matters.

2. New sports hoping to get on the Olympic list have a number of criteria to meet. Having met them you still have to convince the IOC that your event is worthy of the spectacle - with sports often adapting formats to try and achieve that. It doesn’t seem unreasonable that whilst aspiring sports are blocked existing ones should have to dance to the same tune - of course windsurfing has added foils etc to try and do that…

one of sailing's claims to stay in the games is that (supposedly) it was in the first modern games.

That’s a tenuous reason! I don’t think there was actually any sailing in the 1896 games - although boats did feature - because they took the swimmers out and made them swim too shore! The actual sailing was cancelled due to lack on interest/suitable boats. If the IOC does place a lot on the history it probably does explain why fencing and wrestling have survived. Sailing did make it to the next games but so did tug of war, croquet, and polo!

Apparently, the RYA periodically go around hoovering up all the young sailors they can to feed their youth squads. The vast majority of those children, of course, get quickly cast aside. The experience of posters on the thread was that most of those youngsters gave up sailing, often leaving the clubs with virtually no youth sailors.

That sounds familiar across a number of sports with “talent squads”. In fairness it’s not that when the talent squad ditch you you don’t go back to the club, it’s that the club is just not as good as the adventures with the talent squad. What many sports miss is that the reason those not quite top of the game people enjoyed the squad weekends was not the sport - it was the camaraderie and friendships, often friendships away from the people you see every day at school. Many sports also fail to replicate that experience for kids who didn’t make it to the talent squad and wonder why those kids leave.

 

[Fr J Hackett]

Many sports also fail to replicate that experience for kids who didn’t make it to the talent squad and wonder why those kids leave.

I do some rugby coaching of children in the 12 to 16 year age group and some skills coaching with young but older club players starting out in the game. I have come across a couple in both groups that drop out because they aren't the "best" in the group and presumably move on to another activity. Instant gratification / success.

 

[benjenbav]

Many sports also fail to replicate that experience for kids who didn’t make it to the talent squad and wonder why those kids leave.

I do some rugby coaching of children in the 12 to 16 year age group and some skills coaching with young but older club players starting out in the game. I have come across a couple in both groups that drop out because they aren't the "best" in the group and presumably move on to another activity. Instant gratification / success.

I think that’s the nature of elite sport.

At the base you have participants who are trying it because it’s fun or their parents have encouraged them to try it or their school plays that sport or it looks interesting on tv.

Some will have no particular aptitude for this sport or get no enjoyment out of it and will choose to do something else.

Others will enjoy it and take their skills to the next level.

There they may find that they are out of their league. And the enjoyment may go. They may continue at a lower level or just do something else.

Nick Hornby describes this well in, I think, “Fever Pitch” where he recounts being at the top of his ability group at several levels of football until, at Cambridge, he played against competitors who were just in a different class. At which point he dropped back into the comfort zone of social five a side matches because he knew that he just couldn’t get any further.

Those next-level players, themselves, though went on only to journeyman roles in lower division teams when they found a yet higher level.

If the function of sport is to find the best, perhaps it’s an inevitable side-effect to discard the rest.

 

[benjenbav]

In the Paris Olympics, I watched some of the sailing events. There seemed to be a decent crowd on the shore - can’t all have been family and friends. Probably better watched on a screen given the necessary distance - but so are plenty of other events.

It didn’t seem to me a great problem that the sailing took place off Marseilles. Nor did it seem less interesting than many other events.

I’m afraid I rather thought the Guardian article was classic journalism of the “Phil Space” school. 1,500 words by lunchtime - will this do?