Why no aussies in the olympics?

Fastest guys at the LT worlds were about 76-78 kg; the world's #1 ranked RSX sailor was there and won course racing and scored 2nd in slalom and marathon. However, the LT's bid for the Olympics was a tongue in cheek way to get publicity. If it was selected many windsurfers would scream so hard that it would be bad for the sport, IMHO.

Dunno how the $10k IQ Foil will get club fleets like the Laser. A new Laser costs more but the class relies on the vast numbers of cheaper boats out there to get critical mass, and the vast numbers of people who sail it just for club racing and not for speed or for the Olympics. There's not many IQ Foils out there and it could suffer from the same chicken and egg problem as the RSX; you don't get lots of people buying cheap used boards until you get club fleets, but you don't get club fleets until you get lots of people buying cheap used boards. And what sort of club fleets do you get if you can't race in light and fluky winds?

At least the IQ Foil has the advantage that it represents a mainstream branch of windsurfing better than the RSX, and perhaps the IMCO, did.

Even Raceboard class was at a low ebb towards the end of the period when the IMCO was in the Olympics, because the Olympians are soooooo damn good (on the gear they are used to) they are depressing to race against.

Maybe the organisation to ask why Olympic windsurfing has failed in Australia is the Australian Windsurfing Association ? Their main role is to generate sail number registers and procure insurance but it seems to promote class racing has not been effective nor their focus. They are affiliated with AS and a broad church which possibly makes the organisation's architecture ill suited to promote any class. Of course the health and vitality of Windsurfer Class and Bic Techno racing fleets for example is because of the great boards and the willingness of clubs and sailors to join clubs and race these craft in clubs which leads to better participation and racing. RSX failed in Australia will iQFoil do better ?

Several years ago Jo Sterling qualified Australia for the Olympics in RSX. But, because she wasn't top ten in the world, Australian Sailing didn't enter her in the Games. Not a good enough chance to get a medal. I thought that sucked...What motivation does a windsurfer have if you can train for years, compete in world class events in Europe, work your guts out to qualify your Country, only to be knocked back by Australian Sailing......

My BIGGEST beef with the whole system is the split organisation. YA looks after triangle racing and WIndsurfing Australia looks after all other racing. Thus having a fractured development program for any individuals that want to sail. Unless it's changed as I got out awhile back.

We have some issues to overcome:

* We have a small population with pockets of people spaced very far apart. This makes it expensive and time consuming to compete.

* Very few windsurfing instructors (only at a handful of clubs). This makes it hard to find somewhere to learn to windsurf.

* Most windsurfers (my guess is 95%) don't go to yacht clubs (slalom sailors, GPS, free riders, wavesailors etc) and their kids (a good source for a youth fleet) have not spent time at the yacht clubs either.

* The Australian Sailing Performance Director fired our National Windsurfing coach (Max) just before the Youth Olympics (and he had been developing beginner youth competition along the east coast as well as training those competing internationally). The coach was the central coordinating point for youth development. He also helped connect the AWA with AS.
This sent a message of the lack of interest of Australian Sailing in windsurfing. Their attitude has always been that if the other sailing classes have succeeded, then windsurfing should have succeeded in the same way (implying that AS doesn't think it should put in much effort to nurture the sport). They obviously don't understand how long it takes to develop a youth class. The coach was fired without consultation with any windsurfers or discussion with the coach himself and without knowing what had been achieved or what was planned.

* It is unreasonable to expect an athlete to fund themselves to the extent necessary to get to the Olympics. Fund raising is difficult to do and an athlete really needs others to do it for them so they can concentrate on what they do best.

* It is unreasonable to expect that the only way an athlete will be good enough to compete internationally is to give up their home, family and friends and somehow fund themselves to live in Europe for more than 6 months of every year, beg to be included in another country's training squad and give up all hope of having a career or a relationship. If Australian Sailing give the athletes this message, it can be no surprise that it is hard to find people willing (and able) to do this. Particularly when you realise that after years of training and giving up everything else in life, a small injury or illness (or only ranking 6th in the world) can end all your hopes of going to the Olympics.

* Many aspiring athletes have seen how Australian Sailing have treated prior Olympic hopefuls.

* Australian Sailing need to offer Windsurfing and Kitesurfing instruction at most of their clubs (wherever suitable) since they are the organisation responsible for the Olympic pathway for these sports. They need to offer boards to learn on for hire.

* To do well at international level without needing to live overseas, we need to hold competitions in Australia. We need a large fleet to be able to do this effectively (that is to provide strong competition at home to make our athletes stronger). We can't just rely on having a couple of great windsurfers to send to the Olympics. The one windsurfer who is sent to the Olympics needs to have a dozen other Australian windsurfers to train with so that they push each other to become world class. Also all our hopes don't rest on one or two people who could drop out due to unforeseen circumstances.

* Australian Sailing need to commit to sending our best windsurfers and kitesurfers to the Olympics regardless of their medal chances. This will inspire and give hope to kids who are interested in aiming for the Olympics. It is outrageous that a wealthy country like Australia cannot afford to send athletes in every sport we qualify to do so. It is hard enough to gain Olympic qualification for your country and inexcusable that we only send someone if we think they can win. What happened to the Olympic Spirit?

As the Olympic Creed says: "The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well." Well Australian Sailing doesn't think so.

On the positive side:
* For our small population, we have a good amount of windsurfers (and they are very talented. eg it is amazing that Jo Stirling for example was able to qualify Australia and rank so high in the world with very few windsurfers to train with and very little support from AS).
* The IQ already has the largest youth fleet participation Australia has had in decades
* RQ in Brisbane has great volunteers and windsurfing instructors
* Qld, NSW and WA have strong youth fleets developing (and some great coaches)
* IQ seems to be inspiring youth all over the world (about 260 kids have entered the upcoming IQ youth worlds)

An idea for getting more windsurfing instructors:
Currently it costs thousands to become a windsurfing instructor (first aid certificate, powerboat handling course and windsurfing instructor's course). There is little opportunity to work with seasoned instructors to gain experience and few clubs have jobs available for qualified instructors.
Since we need to attract a lot of new windsurfing instructors to train large fleets and have them at every yacht club (like the other classes do), Aus Sailing could offer free training in exchange for their commitment to pay the cost back by instructing for a set number of hours in the clubs where they are needed in return (eg one Saturday per month until repaid after which they can start to be employed).
We should aim for 3-4 windsurfing instructors in every club. We need to grow the capacity of clubs to provide windsurfing instruction to many more kids. This way it could start to be seen by parents as a Saturday morning sporting option where they can drop off the kids and pick them up some hours later.
Clubs can promote/advertise windsurfing lessons because they know they have the capacity to do this. AS should encourage/coorinate this and provide financial support/incentives. They should subsidise the clubs to buy a few boards to start off with. They should promote the learn to windsurf programmes at the yacht clubs so each club doesn't need to duplicate resources to advertise and develop their programmes.

Otherwise we cannot expect windsurfing to achieve the same results as the other sailing classes. Windsurfing has not had the same level of support over many decades by the same wealthy yacht clubs and families as the other boat classes have had. The yacht clubs have been teaching kids to sail boats a long time before windsurfing even started. If we get organised and implement this now, we have a good chance of getting on the podium in 2032 in Brisbane (or at least put forward some very decent athletes to participate in our own games).

has anyone figured out if we can watch the RSX live ?

I'm watching the first race of the womens Laser right now live so RS-X shouldn't be a problem (even though there's no aussies).

It's a great idea to allow instructors to work off those ridiculously expensive qualifications (especially since many of us have had them in the past) but apart from that possibility, Australian Sailing can't really fund clubs to promote windsurfing. For a start, they claim they don't have the money. Secondly, other clubs are paying lots of money to AS already, so why should the clubs who are paying lots of money to AS have to pay even more just to help a branch of the sport that could so what the dinghy sailors and others do, and help themselves?

A club with about 30 members is supposed to pay $1018 per year to AS for affiliation fees alone. That's a huge burden on a small dinghy club, especially since many of them already fund clubhouses and their own training fleets and classes, so why should they have to pay even more just so another branch of the sport can get handed funding from AS?

The top dinghy sailors don't all come from wealthy clubs. Middle Harbour Amateur SC doesn't have a toilet, as far as I can remember, and it's in an old fibro shack but it's got Olympic medals for sailing and coaching. Wangi Sailing Club is in a traditionally working class area and is basically a brick shed; they do have an association with the little licensed worker's club next door but it's still not wealthy yet it produces multiple medallists. Double Bay SC is another wooden shack with an Olympian. Dobroyd (home club of our only windsurfing medallist) is a middle class dinghy club that was rebuilt by members. Tess Lloyd, 49erFX rep, started sailing and winning at Parkdale, which is not a rich club.

The clubs that have premises and training fleets are the ones where members got out and made something happen. If we windsurfers don't make that sort of stuff happen (and KA360 has made stuff happen) we can't expect others to do it for us.