Olympic sailing: Radical rules for the sport of sailing

Olympic sailing is at a crossroads: on the course to a secure and attractive Olympic future, the organisers of the World and European Series are resorting to radical new rules - as was the case last week at the Delta Lloyd Regatta. But everything will also be different at Kiel Week.

The example of the 49er sailors shows how brutal the new regulations can be: A qualification with eight races, a final series with eight races and the conclusion with three medal races, for which only the eight best teams from the main field could qualify, were sailed in Holland. Until now, the participants in the medal race took all their results into the decisive races, apart from the strings. Now, it is only the average score of all 16 races completed up to the medal races that the finalists are allowed to take with them in the value of a single race. "In a nutshell: it's almost exclusively the last day that counts," says Erik Heil, "but all three medal races are included in the overall standings."

What the organisers want to achieve on their course is clear: in future, there should no longer be any early overall winners or winners who do not compete at all. Every team taking part in the medal races should have a chance of winning. Following the example of other sports, the decisions in Olympic sailing should also be made on the final day, in favour of more excitement and therefore more interest from the public and media. The ultimate showdown is the declared goal.

The problem is that sailing is not comparable with other sports because results are largely determined by wind and weather. The external conditions are more important in sailing than in other sports. There are strong and light wind experts. "For us, the Eurosaf events are held in a difficult and not entirely fair mode," says Erik Heil. The same applies to the World Cup regattas, which have adopted a similarly radical horse race programme.

The Olympic part of Kiel Week from 22 to 26 June - for the first time no longer a World Cup regatta but a Eurosaf regatta - will also be merciless this year: only the six best teams after the preliminary heats and main round will make it into the medal races, taking all the results achieved up to that point only as an average result worth a single race. Moana Delle says: "It is certainly okay to experiment three years before the next Olympic Games, but I feel that the new formats are more arbitrary. The best in our sport should prevail under different conditions with the best overall performance."

At the Eurosaf regatta off Medemblik, only a few German teams were able to make a name for themselves. There were no German starters in the Finn Dinghy, Laser, Laser Radial and Nacra 17 disciplines. Tina Lutz (Chiemsee Yacht Club)/Susann Beucke (Hannoverscher Yacht Club) and Victoria Jurczok/Anika Lorenz from the Seglerhaus am Wannsee club were the best DSV teams to rock the small field of just 13 49er-FX teams, storming onto the podium and taking first and second place. Tina Lutz and Susann Beucke won in the style of champions, winning two medal races. Erik Heil and Thomas Plößel also showed with fourth place that they are now consistently sailing among the world's best and are among the Olympic hopefuls for Rio 2016 for good reason.