2024 Olympics

It looks like kite foil racing just got bigger !

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AUS 814 said..

windsufering said..
It looks like kite foil racing just got bigger !

Give it 12 months when all the Potential Olympic contenders are beginning their campaigns for Paris , I will guarantee fleet of 100 plus for world champs

Yep totally agree. The growth and participation of both recreational and fleet racing foiling has significantly and exponentially grown in the last 3 years on Lake Macquarie alone. There is a real sense of excitement and anticipation about where this sport (foiling) is heading while continuing to enjoy all forms of this sport.

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Belly25 said..

AUS 814 said..

windsufering said..
It looks like kite foil racing just got bigger !

Give it 12 months when all the Potential Olympic contenders are beginning their campaigns for Paris , I will guarantee fleet of 100 plus for world champs

Yep totally agree. The growth and participation of both recreational and fleet racing foiling has significantly and exponentially grown in the last 3 years on Lake Macquarie alone. There is a real sense of excitement and anticipation about where this sport (foiling) is heading while continuing to enjoy all forms of this sport.

That's great and good to see. But does that mean that windfoiling is best for the Olympics?

How does windfoiling fit in the emerging sailing nations? What is windfoiling's international spread? How big is windfoiling in Africa? How many nations outside Europe and Australia/NZ do well in windfoiling? How much have emerging nations set aside to spend on building entire new fleets of boards? How well will windfoiling work in the current Olympic venues?

How well does windfoiling fit the IOC OPC Criteria 4 to 10? After all, isn't that pretty much critical?

And why will grass roots windfoil racing not suffer like grass roots D2 sailing, Raceboarding and hybrid sailing did when the Lechner, IMCO and RSX were selected for the Games?

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Chris 249 said..

NelsonFoils said..
It's a good thing the FIA did not base the 2021 F1 race cars on the most popular roadcars....

The OG and Grand prix racing are Top level racing not every day local racing .

If your are the best of your bunch you move up a level(cart to F Renault) and then the next level(F3 toF2) , if your the best , all the way to the top ,,, Olympic gold...

But car racing is not a particularly popular participant sport, therefore there is not the slightest reason to imagine that what F1, F3 or FR does is relevant to the Olympics or increasing windsurfing's popularity. Why should windsurfing follow the model of an incredibly expensive sport that isn't very popular like car racing, instead of following the model of an extremely popular sport like bicycle racing, where the best guys in the world's most-watched annual sporting event use the same gear you can buy at your local shop and ride to work on?

If the car racing model is the best one for sailing to follow, why is the fastest Olympic class (the Nacra 17) the least popular Olympic class? Why is the slowest Olympic class (Laser) the most popular Olympic class?

In the model you want us to follow, a single season for JUNIORS can cost from about $180,000 to up to 1.5 million. It seems that a standard FR budget is about $450,000 per annum. The very names you mention show the difference between car racing and windsurfing. Renault is a company with a revenue of 57 BILLION Euros. The Formula Renault Series' main sponsor, Michelin, has a revenue of 22 BILLION Euros. They can afford to throw sponsorship money in a way that windsurfing can never equal.

And for all the huge money thrown around by vast companies, the Formula Renault EuroCup had 30 entries. Compare that to the Techno 293, which is vastly more popular. Or compare it to the Laser sailing EuroCup which had over ONE THOUSAND entries.

Can you please tell us how a model that gets 30 entries is a better one to follow than a model that gets over ONE THOUSAND entries?

It's lonely at the top !

If you want to get to the top you have to give it all it takes .

If Vettel , Verstappen , Bottas and Hamilton had to race Grandma's citycar do day they go and play golf .

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NelsonFoils said..
It's a good thing the FIA did not base the 2021 F1 race cars on the most popular roadcars....

The OG and Grand prix racing are Top level racing not every day local racing .

If your are the best of your bunch you move up a level(cart to F Renault) and then the next level(F3 toF2) , if your the best , all the way to the top ,,, Olympic gold...

I certainly get your point, but it must be said (and this is mostly irrellevant to this thread really) that in many countries, 'Stock cars' (a misnomer because most are FAR from Stock) and 'touring cars' have far greater spectator roll ups and TV interest than F1.

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windsufering said..
Lol the lt got 170 for their first worlds and the class wasn't even a year old !

It also didn't make the selection trials so for better or worse it's a fairly moot point going forward within this thread.

A foiling board overwhelmingly won the selection trials, was also comfortably voted in so let's see how it plays out.

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windsufering said..

AUS 814 said..

windsufering said..
It looks like kite foil racing just got bigger !

Give it 12 months when all the Potential Olympic contenders are beginning their campaigns for Paris , I will guarantee fleet of 100 plus for world champs

Lol the lt got 170 for their first worlds and the class wasn't even a year old !

Not trying to take away from the LT, but im quite sure the reality is that the majority of that 170 would've been race boarders and ex windsurfer class sailors. Not fresh faces so to speak.

of course the class is growing, and so it should. but a lot of the windsurfer LT boom we're seeing at the moment is people returning to it.

If they can align PWA Foiling equipment rules to make the Olympic kit competitive then I think we'll see some faces from the PWA who previously had no interest in Olympic trials etc.

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windsufering said..
When you change Olympic classes you would expect it would have more competitors than the class it is replacing !
if it doesn't what's the point of changing classes !

Because it's actually what the sailors wanted !

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Belly25 said..
Chris 249 - The simple fact is that sports in which gold medallists use gear of the same type as the "every day local races" are vastly more popular than the ones that don't. Why can't windsurfing learn from that?

I hardly think weekend competition cyclists, rowers, kayakers, equestrian riders, etc. are using anything that closely resembles an Olympic competitor.

Chris 249 - I take it you haven't even read the IOC OPC criteria?

Too busy enjoying life but I hope it was a riveting read.

1- Road cyclists are definitely using stuff that "closely resemble an Olympic competitor". It is the same sort of stuff, racing under the same rules. Standard weekend racing in Masters road cycling, for example, is run under the same equipment rules as the Olympic road racing; In fact due to the UCI rules, your local shop can sell you a racing road bike that is lighter than an Olympic bike. The cycling journos keep a close eye on what pros use, and many of the Aussie Tour de France pros race "every day local races" to keep fit during their off season, so a B-Grade racer like me can just walk up and look at a Team Sky pro's gear on the startline during a weekend event. It's nice gear, but it is pretty much the same as a lot of old weekend warriors use.

By the way, the road bikes used in the Olympics and Tour de France are about 50kmh slower than the fastest bicycles - and yet cycling is the world's most popular equipment-intensive sport. There's a lesson there!

In rowing, according to websites, my own very minor rowing experience and the only national squad rower I know, the Olympians use gear that is very similar to the stuff the weekenders use. Faster gear, like sliding riggers, was banned to ensure that the old stuff remained competitive. Olympic rowing gets more viewers than Olympic skiff and catamaran racing, by the way - there's a lesson there, too.

Kayaking/canoeing is interesting - the Olympic gear hasn't got dramatically faster since the 1930s but it is very different from the stuff you see on your local lake. And y'know what? Kayaking/canoeing isn't very good at getting people into competition at any level. Huge numbers of people paddle for fun, but very few of them compete. So the kayaking/canoeing model, where the elite use very different gear from the average person, doesn't work very well in terms of getting people into competition.

So, yes, the cyclists and rowers DO use the same sort of stuff at Olympic level as at the local weekend club- and the more the rules ensure that the gear is convenient, the more popular the sport.


2- If you haven't read the Olympic Commission's requirements for sports, then you don't know what the customer (the IOC) wants. That's like telling someone what car they should buy before you've even asked whether they are a tradie looking for a 4WD work ute or a F1 racer looking to win at Monaco. The IOC is the body that runs the Olympics - how in the world can we ignore what THEY want in THEIR event?

One of the things that the IOC wants to see is a strong international spread of competitors, world champs and medallists. One of sailing's problems is that it's dominated by Europe, Australia and NZ. Historically, windsurfing looked good because medals went to places like Argentina, Netherlands Antilles, China and Hong Kong. Many of the smaller countries subsidise their Olympic windsurfing fleets and if they decide they can't afford to scrap their RSXs and buy windfoilers, they may stop windsurfing - and that means that World Sailing has less reason to keep giving windsurfing an Olympic spot.

We just can't ignore all these sorts of issues when it comes to this very complex question.

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Subsonic said..

windsufering said..

AUS 814 said..

windsufering said..
It looks like kite foil racing just got bigger !

Give it 12 months when all the Potential Olympic contenders are beginning their campaigns for Paris , I will guarantee fleet of 100 plus for world champs

Lol the lt got 170 for their first worlds and the class wasn't even a year old !

Not trying to take away from the LT, but im quite sure the reality is that the majority of that 170 would've been race boarders and ex windsurfer class sailors. Not fresh faces so to speak.

of course the class is growing, and so it should. but a lot of the windsurfer LT boom we're seeing at the moment is people returning to it.

Yep, you're dead right about the LT; most of the sailors are getting back into the sport but a significant number are bringing in their kids. In the same way, it seems that many foilers are basically moving across from FW and slalom.

The issue is that there's no evidence that putting in "more exciting" classes increases ratings. That came across loud and clear in the days when the IOC broadcasting commission gave out more details of the ratings.

The introduction of the 49er, the introduction of the RSX, the modifications to the Tornado, the introduction of men's match racing, the introduction of women's match racing, the introduction of the medal race and other changes were all justified by the same cry of "it will increase the ratings". None of them seemed to work, so why will windfoiling work?

EDIT - so just to get some data, I checked the viewer numbers for the London 2012 gold medal race official Olympic channel Youtube videos of the medal race replays. I used London because I believe in Rio, it was decided before the event to not do live coverage of all races and the classes that were telecast were decided largely on how the locals were going.

So for London, the classes' Youtube viewer figures look like this;

Laser - 818k
Radial - 283k
RSX M - 191k
Finn - 175k
Elliott - 106k
470 M - 104k
Star - 85k (an earlier race has 244k)
49er - 75k
RSX W - 74k

At the 2018 world sailing championships, each medal race was shown on the World Sailing channel in full. Here are the official event's Youtube viewing figures;

Laser - 74,383
470 M - 37,064
Finn - 22,566
Radial - 18,926
49er - 14,494
RSX M - 7,511
470 W - 7.497
49erFX - 6,636
RSX W - 2,257
Nacra - no wind, no medal race.

So much for Laser sailing being boring! What is actually getting views are the classes that people actually sail, like Lasers and Finns, not less popular but more spectacular classes like 49ers. The same reasoning is probably why in the Laser, 470 and RSX more people watched the men racing.

The fact is that the ratings figures prove that people prefer to watch a bunch of rowers going across flat water in a straight line, rather than foiling cats or somersaulting 49ers. Given that fact - and it is a fact - why will windfoiling work where the 49er, RSX, TOrnado Sport, Nacra 17, Soling Match Racing, Elliott, 49er FX and medal race failed?

There's still a fair chance we'll never know, since the World Sailing assembly still has to ratify the General Committee's choice and they often overturn them. I can bet in a lot of countries, the national sailing body is now getting a call from their funding body saying "and who the hell do you expect is going to pay for all this new gear you want?"

By the way, this got more views than foiling Olympic sailing.....

?t=1630

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P.C_simpson said..
Not sure it was the best move, it's now turned into a rich kid sport, before you even race in the class your up for $6'500 for the iFoil setup.

At least with RSX and Windsurfer LT you can learn well enough on any cheap used equipment, and the skills pretty much transfer straight over to a competitive set up, Foiling on any level pretty much rules out any young kid that don't have rich parents from getting into a sport they watch in the olympics.

BMX racing has had a few years in the Olympics and now Freestyle BMX and Skateboarding are getting introduced in the next one, these are "new School" sports like windsurfing pretty much still is compared to the rest of the sports in the olympics, these sports are already growing massively due to how cheap and easy the kids can get into them and will give them the chance to practice and get to represent there country.

Any kid that shows interest in Foil racing will get very disappointed when they find out how much it's going to cost and how out of reach it is to learn the sport.

Not sure how sailing any board is going to help you with the RSX??, it's pretty unique in its physical requirements especially with the 9.5. BIC are bringing out a foiling youth board and foil. Should provide a much cheaper way into foiling. Plenty of cheaper alloy foils are on the market perfect for learning to foil, eg slingshot,zeeko

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AUS 814 said..

P.C_simpson said..
Not sure it was the best move, it's now turned into a rich kid sport, before you even race in the class your up for $6'500 for the iFoil setup.

At least with RSX and Windsurfer LT you can learn well enough on any cheap used equipment, and the skills pretty much transfer straight over to a competitive set up, Foiling on any level pretty much rules out any young kid that don't have rich parents from getting into a sport they watch in the olympics.

BMX racing has had a few years in the Olympics and now Freestyle BMX and Skateboarding are getting introduced in the next one, these are "new School" sports like windsurfing pretty much still is compared to the rest of the sports in the olympics, these sports are already growing massively due to how cheap and easy the kids can get into them and will give them the chance to practice and get to represent there country.

Any kid that shows interest in Foil racing will get very disappointed when they find out how much it's going to cost and how out of reach it is to learn the sport.

Not sure how sailing any board is going to help you with the RSX??, it's pretty unique in its physical requirements especially with the 9.5. BIC are bringing out a foiling youth board and foil. Should provide a much cheaper way into foiling. Plenty of cheaper alloy foils are on the market perfect for learning to foil, eg slingshot,zeeko

A cheap foil kit is still an extra kit thats needed in the step from techno to the Olympic class

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John340 said..
Will the inclusion of the iFoil in the Olympics attract foilers from the PWA?

Probably not since iFoil is one design. I don't think Fanatic, NP, JP, Tabou, Gaastra, Duotone etc would want their sponsored riders supporting Starboard/Severne. The 95 cm width is different to the PWA widths of 91 cm for slalom foil and 100cm for race foil and the sails in PWA will evolve whereas the foil sails for foil will remain as Hyper Glide Olympic versions limited to one sail ie: 8 m2 for ladies and 9 m2 for men. The Hyper Glide Olympic sail is an evolution of the Hyper Glide 2 sail, but the Severne R&D team is working intensely on further evolutions of the Hyper Glide 2 to accommodate next level PWA and course racing. Also the foil for iFoil will remain one design as I understand it whereas foils in PWA will evolve constantly. Optimal weights and fitness for iFoil may also not accord with the weights and fitness of PWA sailors due to differing equipment and sails.