The International Sailing Federation (ISAF) has stated its intention to “fully defend” the decision to replace windsurfing with kiteboarding in the Rio 2016 Olympic competition after the International RS:X Class Association announced it has commenced legal proceedings over the matter.
Thursday’s development comes after the ISAF took the surprise decision in May to drop windsurfing from the Olympic programme for Rio de Janeiro’s 2016 Games, with kiteboarding being named in its place. The decision came after an evaluation group was appointed in November to examine kiteboarding formats with the board events for Rio 2016 defined as ‘windsurfing and/or kiteboarding’. The Evaluation Group recommended that kiteboarding be included in the ISAF event family including the Sailing World Cup and the Sailing World Championships, but the ISAF Council went one step further and selected kiteboarding for the Rio 2016 Olympic sailing competition as well.
The decision proved a hugely contentious one amongst the windsurfing community and the RS:X has claimed huge support for its effort to fight the move. The RS:X said its legal team has viewed the ISAF’s decision as “perverse and unfair”, adding that it has issued a claim for judicial review in the High Court in London. The RS:X provides one-design windsurfing equipment for the Olympics and other major events, along with overseeing the development of the sport.
The International RS:X Class Association said in a statement that “28,385 people from around the world have signed the online petition against the ISAF decision” and “18,812 have joined the ‘Appeal against kitesurfing in the Olympics’ Facebook Group” with “13,209 following the ‘Vote Windsurfing’ Facebook page”. The tone of the discussions in these forums has been one of disbelief that two colourful, dynamic, media friendly global events could be so easily discarded.
“(There is) disbelief that such a strong pipeline of Youth and Junior windsurfing classes could be discarded in favour of a discipline with no such pipeline. Disbelief that a class, the RS:X, which is second only to the single handed men’s and women’s Laser Class in terms of size, diversity and global reach could be discarded. Disbelief that a class that has such a high level of women’s participation in terms of numbers and quality of competition could be so lightly ignored in favour of an event where only 12 women from 10 countries took part in the last kite course racing world championships.”
Responding to the legal action, the ISAF said: “ISAF intends to fully defend the decision of the ISAF Council, which was made in accordance with the ISAF Regulations and the defined decision making processes of ISAF. ISAF expects the normal submission process to be used in order to ask Council to reconsider its decisions and therefore ISAF is extremely disappointed that this course of action has been taken, not least because responding to legal claims will incur substantial and unnecessary legal costs for ISAF and for the Class itself.”
