Olympic Sailing and the media
In a report on sail-World.com, Richard Gladwell makes his feelings clear that the medal race concept must be due some refinement by ISAF. Before going onto slam ISAF again for dropping the Tornado from the 2012 Olympic Regatta line-up.
However, he does make interesting points and they should be considered fully.
The double point scoring system in the medal race has encouraged competitors to match race opponents to the back of the fleet. Was this an intended consequence or should we revert to a compulsory full fleet final race with normal low points scoring system?
Expatriate Aussie Jim Champ, who sails a range of development classes in Britain, has re-scored the 2008 Qingdao Olympic regatta under single points for the Medal race and it’s interesting to see the medal changes. A quick glance at the data suggests that the medal race had made little difference but looking more closely its not as simple as it seems.
To look at Jim’s full data set go to http://www.devboats.co.uk/olympics08.htm
In the RS: X Men’s class there would have been the major change. Julien Bontemps capsize at the top mark in the Medal race cost him the Gold Medal, which on the alternate scoring, he would have still won. Kiwi Tom Ashley, who won Gold, was the beneficiary with Bontemps would have been relegated to Silver and Great Britain’s Nick Dempsey would have taken Bronze instead of the Israeli’s Shahar Zubari.
To read the full story go to: http://www.sail-world.com/europe/index.cfm?SEID=2&Nid=48484&SRCID=0&ntid=77&tickeruid=0&tickerCID=0
Tags: 2008 Olympic Regatta, Quingdao