I think we all assume that Kites will be racing.
It was suggested to me that its a freestyle event with judges. I cant find anything on ISAF website to confirm.
All the other classes have the equipment confirmed. Kite equipment is still up the air at this stage. No pun intended.
Jokes aside, its really sad times for me and my mates.
I'm really proud to have race and travelled with MOD and RSX. Best times
I agree with john when he says
dont knock kites to get olympic status back.
and
time to get back to grassroots, repackage the product and focus on building organised participation.
we need to keep racing (cause its fun) and to show ISAF its still relevant for 2020.
we all the support and emotion on the net and email I am feeling more and more confident we will get the same result as the cats.
Sorry to hear they pulled windsurfing from the Olympics. It should be in.
I'd like to give a perpective on kite racing from the inside.
We started running a race series on Botany Bay in Sydney in 2010. We got about 15 people who wanted to have a go. After all, there was kite gear up to the value of about $2000 up for grabs from generous sponsors.
Most people had never seen a race board and had no idea how to ride one. The ones that could ride the boards blitz the field, especially in the upwind legs of the course.
We all had a lot of fun and agreed to do it again next year.
What a difference 12 months made! November 2011 saw everyone (30 odd people) turn up with race boards and had been practicing all winter. Some new guys have come across from skiff racing and are not interested in the usual twin tip boards but all they want to do is race.
Agreed, the race boards are weird, uncomfortable and difficult to ride but they have captured the imagination of people with a competitive nature.
I had a young guy email me (via Facebook) this morning saying he rigged up just before dawn in 9 knots of wind and blasted around the bay for an hour.
See below
Hey guys, just got back from a kite session (yes thats right, pumped up before sunrise). Probably a 9 knot westerly where I was,........took ....GPS out with me (thanks!), upwind speeds around 15-17knots with max downwind at 21.35knots on the 17 Edge and cab raceboard. Just thought I would share :).
That shows passion!
Kite racing is growing fast here and overseas. I'm pleased it's in the Olympics but not at the expense of our windsurfing friends.
I am not convinced the olympics has much to do with participation.
I believe i has most to do with the sole purpose of providing a spectacle.
For tv and sponsors alike i.e MONEY.
I believe Isaf (or sailing) are struggling to remain part of the olympic movement and therefore have decided to sacrifice the form of sailing that prob has the least amount of lobby power...the sailboards
To try a new Class that they think will provide a show and attract sponsors and thus reinvigorate sailing in general.
I liken it to free to air tv stations continually striving to get an edge over the competitor stations.
By creating crap reality shows in the hope that someone will watch them.
If the olympics where based on participation alone then someone please explain how sports like
Shotput,Javelin,fencing etc maintain there places in the olympic line up?
I cant remember ever driving past the local park and seeing many dudes chucking canon balls and spears around or trying to poke each others eyes out with steel sticks.
But to get BMX in they dumped a cycle class
To get in MTB they dumped a cycle class
To get in kiting why not dump an old class too (ie a boat)
Then again that rules out archery (guns replaced bows)
and hurdles (we have gates now)
etc
Dont try to compare windsurfing / sailboarding with kiting
what came first the egg or the chicken
Hopes, Dreams and Lively Hoods of thousands
have been crushed.
Windsurfing was voted in as an Olympic sport by ISAF 1981 and ever since 1984.
The windsurfing equipment has changed due to ISAF's demands 5 times, more than any other Olympic sailing discipline and windsurfing still has managed to grow back each time.
The equipment changes have not always been due the popular windsurfers vote.
The rule changes & formats introduced by the Olympic Windsurfing Class & it's sailors, have often lead to positive change in the other Olympic Class formats.
In 2012 the Olympic Windsurfing Sport [RSX] is the most accurately consistent one design racing class in the sailing world so it is really a sailor on sailor sport.
The RSX has the widest fair racing wind range of all Olympic Sailing Classes from 2 to 35 plus knots.
It currently has the highest top end speeds of all Olympic sailing classes; it is stronger globally than ever before, more dynamic to watch than most Olympic Sailing classes and has the highest athletic performance of all sailors ever.
The Olympic Windsurfing class has a perfect feeder class from the Bic Techno 293 junior and youth classes. The Bic techno class is the second biggest one design sailing class in the world to the Optimist.
The growth of the Bic Techno 293 class is still on the rise globally & may soon pass the Optimist for this position.
With this single ISAF ballot, so much development work, many windsurfing long-term plans & dreams have been crushed, jobs destroyed and years of training and investment in equipment & knowledge put to waste.
The RSX Olympic Windsurfing class appears to have all the Olympic ideals, but has strangely been crushed by an ill-informed or misguided ISAF council decision.
^^^ well said you summed up nicely why windsurfing deserves to be put back in. Best way we can support our sailors and all the other sailors from around the world is to keep getting people to sign the petition and join the facebook page.
Some of the worlds best slalom windsurfers say this funny **** !!!! Very True!!!
Windsurfers were never united properly around the world. This led to small people and idiot sailing federations that know nothing to take control and push windsurfing back in time by bringing the RSX boards- the worst piss of **** ever made!! un attractive 21 kg **** when we were already making 6kg light boards and sails that are planning in 6 knots and flying above the water like kings! Looking great, feeling fun and going fast. The windsurfing experience of the RSX board is horrific! you just feel like you are dragging a plastic bag around with you and racing on it looks like my poor dead grandmother as well. Now the windsurfing world in complaining oh why they took us out and put kiting instead? Well eat the **** that you cooked us with your RSX door.
Im just really sorry for all the cool kids that i saw sailing on Tecno having fun and training. What will this kids do now? Kill them self trying to do kite?
Also I ask myself.. on a starting line 50 guy with kites? 50 girls with kites? if the kite is over the line are you over early? hahaha also what happens to all the sailing clubs with gusty winds?can you launch a kite there what kind of a weird decision is this ? who paid who in ISAF what was going on in there minds? Are they gonna be responsible for all the kids and people getting hurt by kite injury's and accidents?
So in the next years Im looking forward even more then ever to see a kiter come to me and ask me : hey can you pleas? hey will you pick my kite? oh can you? ho will you help me launch? WHAT A ****ING JOKE!!!!
Legendary statement... first (will not name names) shovvwed us with the RSX,, and now with this al-kiter discipline... on the positive side, the current RSX guys will only need 2 weeks to be at top level kitesurfing..... none the less....there is some shady business going on here
From surfertoday.com:
Kiteboarding "belongs at the X Games", says Barbara Kendall
Monday, 07 May 2012 14:56
Barbara Kendall, a New Zealand Olympic windsurfing champion, believes that kiteboarding "belongs at the X Games", after the sport replaced windsurfing in the 2016 Olympic Games, in Rio de Janeiro.
Kendall confessed she was shocked after hearing that the ISAF Council had changed their votes in favour of kiteboarding. Windsurfing has been part of the Olympic movement since 1984 and will be showcasing in London 2012, for the last time.
"It is exciting for kiteboarding but tragic for boardsailing. Kiteboarding really is a sport that should be at the X Games. It's more of an extreme sort of recreational sport and the judging is just so subjective because it involves tricks and other stunts that are a feature of the X Games", explains Barbara Kendall.
"The IOC has said it wants to move away from that sort of sport and judging and boardsailing also ticks all the gender and demographic boxes. So I was very surprised by the news and I guess they have bowed to pressure to modernise. While that is good I do not think kiteboarding is the answer", add the winner gold, silver and bronze medals in three Olympic Games.
Meanwhile, kiteboarders defend their victory and a very hot debate is underway.
"When it became clear that there will be not more than two medals we tried to work out something together with the RS:X class to share the medals, to ensure the Windsurfing stays in the Olympic Games, but Kiteboarding can be added", says Markus Schwendtner, Executive Secretary of the International Kiteboarding Association.
"Unfortunately - this request has been refused by the RS:X class and thus ISAF had to make a decision, and if you take the risk then you must be aware that there is a chance to lose", he adds.
"However, I have windsurfed almost all my life, and I truly believe that both kiteboarding and windsurfing should be in the Olympic Games, and we will support windsurfing to come back in for 2020 as far as we can".
Seems that we don't even know if it's going to be racing or freestyle.
You are quite possible correct Doug, and its a point well made.
Sadly slalom racing is about waiting around for heats, but there is nothing stopping anyone from going for a sail between heats. I have helped organise a few slalom events (sitting on my own in a small boat in either cold and rain, or 35 degrees heat ;-( ) and from that standpoint it is a hectic day on the water. Typically heats are run every 15 minutes (typically 16 people in heat 1 and 16 in heat 2, bottom 8 from heats 1 and 2 race in heat 3, top 8 from heat 1 and 2 race in heat 4, repeat until exhaustion). There have been weekends where there have been up to 14 rounds (Thats 28 races for everyone)
Why not get involved and help organise a marathon race around the bay? The bulk of organisation is done on the web or by phone well before the event so your physical locations should not be an issue.
Only by getting involved can the range of services delivered by the clubs reflect what you want. How can a club know what you want if you dont tell them?
JB
This thread is depressing. I wish it would disappear to page two and never surface again.
Let the kiters have a go at Olympics. If it works then thats great. If it doesn't, oh well, at least they gave it a shot. Either way if some windsurfers want windsurfing in the Olympics then they need to put together and sell a product that appeals to people like the King of Greece. These sorts of bigwigs appear to be the ones that need to be impressed.
Good comments chris249, slalom would be cool but an Olympic boards needs to sail in all conditions, in and out of tight harbours, any wind direction etc etc so it should something with a centreboard and a compromise design in order to sail in the widest range possible. With that design brief in mind I dont think the RSX has been a bad board. Cant blame Neil Pryde either, they submitted their design and it got chosen, nothing wrong with a company putting their product forward. Since getting the RSX chosen as the Olympic board I think they have supported the class globally and lived up to their commitments.
I don't know what your all carrying on about. Junior development hasn't been wasted - they just move across to kites. Kite racing and formula windsurfing racing requires the same skills in my book. As for livelyhoods, just move across to kites. 2020 might be a light wind venue and they can switch back to a displacement windsurfer board. Kiting and windsurfing should be working together.
I'm not sure that losing the Games is bad for windsurfing and I think the kiters have been very good about the whole situation, but there's more to it.
Kids in Sydney, at least, can't "just move to kites" - they also normally have to move from where they sail because kites are banned or impractical at most places where kids sail.
My club has produced many of the Youth Worlds windsurfers over the years and our only Olympic board medallist, and kitesurfing can't work where we sail for many reasons - there's not enough rigging space as it is, and in the best breeze you have to tack up a 145m wide channel and share a 1.5km long bit of water with up to 80 other racing boards and boats and kayaks and rowers, so you have zero chance of giving them the required space! 
We still have the biggest weekly fleet of boards (either type) in the country, but moving the kids to kites just isn't practical.
EDIT - It turns out that kiting is banned at our club and all other clubs on Sydney Harbour and tributaries- the NSW Association map is a bit misleading but the regulations are clear.
Kiting is also banned in the place where the two kids who won the last Youth Worlds selection live and sail. So that area is out of the picture, too.
The kids would now face a 40-30 minute+ drive through the city to get to a kitesurfing location where there is no club, no coach boat, no rescue boat, nowhere for the parents to wait while the kids sailed so they could then drive them home again, no facilities, and no one to race with.
There's hundreds of kids sailing dinghies at clubs in Sydney, but 0.00000% of them do it where NSWKSA recommends that people go kiting. So those areas aren't popular with kids and any kids who already sail will be taken away from the clubs that taught them. The clubs' volunteers have little incentive to spend their valuable time and scarce club funds to teach kids who will then go sail kites somewhere else.
Kiting and Formula racing may require similar skills, but most board racers are on longboards and hybrids.
It may not matter - Olympic selection often hurts a discipline and while we lose the lure of the Olympics, a lot of the kids got burned by the squad system anyway. Now we may be able to stop infighting and start building a better base.
To be honest, I think you're welcome to the Games.
Kiting's inclusion in the Olympics has nothing to do with windsurfings exclusion
cough cough
isaf put kite surfing up against windsurfing it did not put it up against the 49er laser finn or 470
