Sailboat Racing is one of the oldest sports in the world and was a fixture in the games of the first Olympiad in Greece in 1896. World Sailing has called on the Member National Authorities (in the United States that’s US Sailing) to adjust their events to achieve a few goals in the 2024 Olympics in order to satisfy the International Olympic Committee and retain 10 events for sailors. Those goals are:
- Gender equality (the same number of men and women competing in Olympic sailing)
- To have two or four mixed events as part of the sailing competition
- Not to include “duplicate events,” or events that are very similar in the eyes of the IOC, such as the men’s Laser and men’s Finn
World Sailing has locked in the Men’s and Women’s Laser events for the 2024 Olympics, along with the Men’s and Women’s 49er, and the Mixed Nacra 17 event. US Sailing has submitted a proposal to World Sailing identifying 4 new events:
- Men’s and Women’s Windsurfing Triathalon
- Mixed Kite Triathalon
- Mixed Team Racing (2 sail boat yet to be named)
- Mixed Offshore Racing
These changes are being made in an attempt to keep sailing with the number of events and medals that the sport currently has. They already reduced the athlete count for the 2020 Olympic Sailing Events from 380 sailors to 350. We’ll see where this goes…but for now…Laser racing is still an Olympic event!
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