A controversial vote by ISAF Council during its annual conference in November 2007 led to the decision not to include a modern high performance dinghy for women, the expulsion of the multihull event and the introduction of a match racing format for the women’s keelboat event.
The Royal Yacthing Association (RYA) were among those who lobbied ISAF and fellow governing bodies around the world, believing that the decisions was not in the best interests of the sport.
They succeeded in helping put the issue back on the agenda for the world governing body’s May meetings at the 2008 Olympic sailing host city in an attempt to get the events reinstated for 2012, when the sailing will take place in Weymouth.
At today’s meeting, the RYA’s representative Chris Atkins was the first to address the council on the subject and spoke strongly in support of the recommendations of ISAF’s expert events committee, which backed the inclusion of multihull and women’s high performance dinghy events among the 10 events permitted for the 2012 Games.
Although an initial simple majority vote - 20 votes to 17 - by the ISAF council appeared to suggest they were keen to look again at the slate of events for 2012, subsequent votes to overturn the men’s and women’s event decisions did not receive the required two-thirds majority, so the events will remain as per the original ISAF vote in November.
They are:
Men
· Windsurfer
· One person dinghy
· Two person dinghy
· Two person high performance dinghy
· Keelboat
·One person dinghy heavy
Women
· Windsurfer
· One person dinghy
· Two person dingy
· Keelboat (Match racing)
