Update about "ISAF: Keep Windsurfing as Olympic Discipline"

Subject: Update about "ISAF: Keep Windsurfing as Olympic Discipline"
(email from Change.Org - republished here)

As you may may know the RS:X Class lodged a claim for judicial review
in the High Court in London on August 1st 2012.

It basically seeks to establish whether ISAF have followed all the
necessary protocol and procedures in reaching their decision. This
is what the judge in the court is going to be asked to determine. it’s
not to say that it’s a good decision or a bad decision, it’s whether
the decision was taken correctly.

The law says that claims for judicial review have to be made within
3 months of the date of the decision prompting the action. The ISAF
made the decision to select kite on May 5th. The time limit therefore
ran out on August 5th.

Questions seeking clarification of the minutes of the ISAF Mid Year
meeting were asked at the beginning of June. ISAF's official response
came on July 17th. Further correspondence then took place to which we
received the last response on July 31st. It was therefore not out our choice to
make such a claim during the Olympic Games nor do we relish making it.

The legal advice which we have received after close study of the ISAF
constitution, regulations and minutes is that there is a sound basis on which
to proceed and that is therefore what we have done. We emphasise that we
are not questioning whether ISAF have made a good decision or a bad decision,
we simply seek to establish whether the decision was taken correctly.

That being said, we are working to find a solution by making personal contact
with ISAF at the highest level. We have no wish other than to ensure that
Olympic windsurfing be given a fair and equal chance

The costs involved could be substantial so we have set up a fighting fund
to help cover existing or future legal costs but the future of windsurfing
in the Olympics is at stake together with the hopes and dreams of 1000s of
young athletes all over the world. Those are priceless.

Note: This is supervised by our accountants Prince Croft Willis of Poole.

To help you help us we have set up two ways in which you can take action
to support Olympic Windsurfing. 

 

1. If you just want to make a donation of 5, 10 or even 20 dollars,
we have created a Paypal Donation Page which is linked directly to the
RS:X Bank account. Go to tinyurl.com/votewindsurfing now

 

2. OR if you prefer, you can show your support by buying T-Shirts,
sweats, water bottles and much, much more in the Vote Windsurfing
online shop at http://www.cafepress.com/VoteWindsurfing?utm_source=supporter_message&utm_medium=email

 

Rest assured that your donation will be focused solely on covering
existing or future legal costs and please note that cafepress.com offer
a full money back guarantee if you are not entirely satisfied with your
purchase

Finally, a big thank you to all 29,915 of you who have signed the petition.
It is an overwhelming demonstration of the strength of support for Olympic
windsurfing out there in the world.

And thank you for doing your utmost to ensure windsurfing will be in Rio 2016

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View the petition  

No medals for US Sailing Team at 2012 Games

Here is a lively series of posts on the recent lack of success of the current Olympic team.

http://forum.sailingscuttlebutt.com/DISCUSSION_C6/Dock_Talk_F5/No_medals_for_US_Sailing_Team_at_2012_Games_P14264/


My take is that we finally got to see the results of Dean Brenner's policy of only funding the winners. It is no mystery that he has barely funded the windsurfer representatives and that US Sailing has put little effort into developing the youth windsurfing or Olympic windsurfing programs. Even if you could argue there was some de-minimus support it does not nearly come up to the support of windsurfing given by China, Israel or  Holland.

If I had to propose a policy it would be to evenly spread around 50% of the funding amongst all of the athletes on a per capita basis and then award the balance of the funding on results. If you wanted something more complicated you could use this for example.

• 1st year after the Olympiad 70% of funding spread per capita 30% to top performers.
• 2nd year after the Olympiad 60% of funding spread per capita 40% to top performers.
• 3rd year after the Olympiad 50% of funding spread per capita 50% to top performers.
• The year of the Olympiad 40% of funding spread per capita 60% to top performers.

I am sure you could tweak this a but and make it more complicated but clearly the idea of only supporting the winners has been a failure. Why not try something with more of a long term focus - something more long term.