Olympic sailing: Better than its reputation: Olympic sailing in a world championship format

Anyone who witnessed the World Championships of all Olympic sailing disciplines in Aarhus, Denmark, last summer will perhaps be less surprised: The 2018 World Sailing Federation's top event not only thrilled the vast majority of participants and visitors on site, but also apparently scored highly with positive local and international effects in the eight core research sectors of business, tourism, media, social networks, sponsorship, sport, society and sustainability. This is emphasised by the results of an event study conducted by the British company Sportcal and now published by the World Sailing Federation, which here can be read in detail.

An overview of the most important results: With a cumulative attendance of 400,000 and 151,414 different people, the World Championships from 30 July to 12 August were the biggest in the history of Olympic sailing. The Danes not only benefited from their hospitality, their great passion for sailing and their unique new venue, but also from two weeks of fantastic weather. According to the GSI ranking (GSI stands for "Global Sports Impact") by the sports analysts at Sportcal, who analysed and compared 30 world championships between 2017 and 2018, the Aarhus Sailing World Championships ranked fourth in terms of visitor numbers and participants (1247 sailors from 84 nations). In terms of visitor numbers, only the World Athletics Championships in London 2017 (900,000), the 2017 Men's Handball World Championships (539,943) and the 2017 Fina World Swimming Championships (485,000) were even bigger. Popular sports such as horse riding, the World Indoor Athletics Championships, rowing, climbing, BMX and many more lagged well behind the appeal of the World Cup sailing events.

A sustainability plan that is probably unrivalled with regard to the sports venues themselves, even though many plastic dishes and cups were still on offer during the event, as well as the maritime festival in Aarhus with its information tents about the sporting event and the topic of sustainability, obviously inspired the visitors. The bicycles provided by the city for the event staff cycled a total distance of 15,000 kilometres. However, this was also due to the fact that there were three event harbours spread across the new Aarhus Ø district, which required a lot of commuting between them. IOC President Thomas Bach, who had visited the World Championships, was impressed by the hosts' commitment, saying: "I think it is remarkable that World Sailing, Aarhus and Denmark have developed programmes that focus on sustainability. This is the benchmark for this type of world championship."

Highly active in the media

The media impact of the combined Sailing World Championships was also above average: 75 broadcasters worldwide either broadcast live or showed news and highlights of the two-week World Championships in 198 nations. 15.67 million households watched the TV coverage. In Denmark alone, broadcaster DR showed 30 hours of live World Championship sailing. SAP Sailing Analytics contributed to the viewing pleasure. The live data, overlaid participant portraits, exciting and easy-to-understand animations and graphics as well as up-to-date weather information, tracking and live rankings also made the World Championships exciting and easy to follow for television viewers.

Kim Andersen, Danish President of World Sailing and recently criticised due to complaints about the discipline selection processes for the 2024 Olympic Games, had more reason to be pleased when looking at the results of the study: "The 2018 Hempel Sailing World Championship was the most successful to date. The results achieved in the eight pillar areas are really encouraging. They emphasise that the investments made by our valued partners - Hempel, Sport Event Denmark and Aarhus Events - have really paid off. The numbers of visitors and participants were outstanding. And the comparisons with other sports featured in the GSI report show that sailing is one of the world leaders in the international sports community."

It is certain that the Dutch harbour city of The Hague will have to make an effort for the next combined world championship of all Olympic disciplines in 2022 and at the same time hope for the kind of weather luck that the Danes and their sailing guests had last summer. The Dutch will certainly not lack passion and love for sailing after their first World Championship presentations and in view of their sailing history in the Ocean Race and in the Olympic classes as the most successful nation at the Aarhus World Championship.