Olympic sailing: "The best must be at the top!"

The pioneers this time are the Olympic RS:X surfers. At their European Championship in May and other regattas such as the Trofeo Princesa Sofía off Mallorca, they are testing a new regatta format that has already been used for several years in the Star Sailors League (SSL) professional series, for example. The format consists of a preliminary round lasting several days for all participants in a discipline. The best twelve teams qualify for the quarter-finals. The best six of them go through to the semi-finals. The top three then compete in the grand final for the medals - a classic knockout system.

What makes perfect sense for a professional circuit with high entertainment value, however, has some disadvantages from the perspective of Olympic sailors. Sailing regattas are more reliable and fairer when they are held over as many races as possible, because the sport is exposed to several unpredictable environmental influences such as wind strength, gusts, lulls, waves, currents and more. Even top people can get "stuck" in a race, but still be clearly the best overall. This is the main reason why top performers are against knock-out formats and the overweighting of individual knock-out finals, such as those seen in football at world championships or in athletics.

"Just ask Usain Bolt what he would think of running the 100-metre sprint through a busy pedestrian zone," says Laser vice world champion Philipp Buhl, who compares the pedestrians to the many influencing factors on a regatta course near the shore. "It would certainly be fun to see which sprinter gets in the way of more or fewer pedestrians. Yes, the chance factor could even lead to Bolt not making it through to the quarter-finals because he was unlucky and tripped over a domestic pig on a lead. I can say that gusts can be pretty piggish. Who would be happy with an Olympic semi-final or final without a Bolt just because the format might seem attractive? It would be like an Olympic sailing final without Ben Ainslie, because he sailed really well but was unlucky in a crucial intermediate race." Sixth-placed Toni Wilhelm, who has since retired from the Olympics, has already criticised previous attempts to weight finals even higher (currently: double scoring for the top ten after the preliminary and main rounds): "Our regattas must not end in a lottery." Olympic bronze medallist Erik Heil had also already warned during the first format experiments in the direction of a higher final weighting: "The format will not prevail in the Olympics."

The argument in favour of knock-out formats sounds tempting at first. TV commentator and Star Sailors League presenter Digby Fox believes: "It would be a fantastic move. The Star Sailors League introduced this format in the style of the ATP Tennis Grand Prix a few years ago. I can say that it's great. In the final itself, the winner is also the overall winner. Boom! Podium: 1, 2, 3." At the same time, Fox describes the current Olympic regatta format as "maths lessons" in which you have to calculate who will come second. The SSL has proven how well the knockout concept works.

Buhl counters this with equally simple arguments: "The best must be on top of the podium at the Olympic Games. That doesn't work with a knock-out format in sailing. Sailing is a traditional sport and must not sell its soul completely. We don't train for a decade and then take part in a lucky lottery. Incidentally, the finals in Rio and at previous games were often extremely exciting. Also for the spectators." In Rio, for example, two Brazilians won gold with a two-second lead at the finish. That was a sailing thriller. Just like it was in other classes, such as the Nacra 17 or the Laser. With skilful commentary, such finals are easy to understand and also exciting for spectators.

Buhl has another argument against the knockout formats: "Formula 1 and the Tour de France are regarded as exciting sporting classics. But they are not necessarily decided in the last race or on the final stage. Sailing doesn't have to sell its soul to become more attractive. It is attractive, it just needs to be shown and commented on in a knowledgeable and exciting way."