OLYMPIC SKIING

My favorite television, the Olympics. A winner take all game. The Holmenkollen is one of the oldest and once upon a time the biggest jump anywhere. Today it is just another jump in terms of size but to win there is still a grand reward.

Tomorrow morning the US hockey team plays Russia, and the alumni hockey game at St. George’s School will be played.

ANOTHER THOUGHT ABOUT US SAILING

I am one of the coaches for the NZ men’s 49er and the women’s 470 teams and have for the past 15 years also been working in the US sailing system with the top juniors.

Having brought 9 of the 12 NZ team members thru from Optis to the Olympic team and having won 17 world titles and over 60 NZ titles. (Plus numerous US national titles) I feel I can accurately give a comparison of the two systems. Here are my thoughts:

US sailors are over coached and seem to spend the entire summer at regattas rather than training. The ratio is 5 training days to 1 competition day.
There is an obvious lack of a tunable boat in the system, too many lasers and look at the US laser results, awful.
The US coaches are lazy and technically very poor, results don’t seem to count.
The system is covered in South American coaches who, to fill there own bank accounts have pushed the 24/7 coaching mentality (We started with some Argentino coaches in NZ but quickly got rid of them after seeing the decline in that countries results).

Zero talent identification from US sailing. My sailors have won a whole lot of US titles but not once been approached by US sailing to acknowledge this talent.
Sailing is way too expensive in the US, thus excluding a lot of the hungry, driven athletes, again everyone has their hand out. Regattas have turned into moneymaking exercises by the clubs involved, with a prime example in the Buzzards Bay Regatta, which is hugely expensive to enter and has the worst race management I have ever seen. Why is there a constant fight amongst the clubs involved in this regatta to hold the event? Profit.
The US collegiate system is the best racing in the world but produces debt-ridden sailors who are great sprint racers but need to be retrained for Olympic work as the tuning knowledge just isn’t there.
Most of the US-born coaches are ex-collegiate coaches. Can no one else see the problem here?
Money and covering the athletes with coaches won’t help the situation; the problem is in the youth and junior structures.

Obviously the present management and coaches need to go, and those who appointed them need to have a long hard look at themselves in the mirror.

I have a great fondness for the US sailing scene and have had many great experiences over the years, but since I have been in this system, the numbers of sailors have dropped, the coach numbers have increased and the results have declined. Sad.

John Morgan
Morgan Yacht Design

ELIMINATE SAILING FROM THE OLYMPICS?

The following article is from the New York Times.

Sailing Is a Sport Apart

Bomani Jones is a contributor at SBNation.com, where he writes and stars in a YouTube show called “Bomani & Jones.” He’s also a regular contributor to ESPN’s “Around The Horn.” He is on Twitter.

UPDATED AUGUST 10, 2012, 7:05 AM

After seeing the majestic diversity of the Olympics’ Parade of Nations, a visual representation of the best of the Olympic ideal, the last thing I want to watch is a sport where the biggest determinant of success is being rich. I could ask for many sports to be removed on this basis, but I’ll go with sailing because … well, who wants to watch boats that don’t make lots of noise?

O.K., I can do better — what does sailing embody that anyone loves, specifically, about the Olympics? Where is the simplicity of the event that gives the impression that anyone could participate?

You need to be of a certain class with special access to sail. In an event that celebrates inclusion, it is the most exclusive.

Even with sports like swimming and rowing, which cost too much for many, anyone could, theoretically, participate. There’s nothing stopping someone from doing backflips and the other staples of gymnastics.

Sailing? The name of the game is access. The touching human interest stories that buoy NBC’s ratings for the Olympics are somewhere between rare and nonexistent. It’s clearly an activity for a particular class stratus and, given how overwhelmingly white the Olympic participants are, it’s clearly not the world’s game.

If the Olympics is going to wrap itself in touchy-feely stories, it’s hard to get behind sports that are so obviously exclusive. If the Games are supposed to bring the world together, we can do without sports that do the opposite.

We revisit this subject frequently, but after the performance of the American sailors, who are very good, by the way, but were clearly out classed.Not even close to medal contention. Anyone who followed the team leading up to the Olympics would have seen that the team never won any major events. They were never really in contention in the previous three years.

Fingers must be pointed; but in which direction? Was their preparation so far askew? Is US Sailing the governing body in the United States missing the mark? Are the coaches so bad? What to do?