Women's Keelboat Match Racing
This trend has continued and women’s participation in Olympic Games’ sailing events has continued to go from strength to strength, with new events added for the women’s one person dinghy, women’s windsurfer and women’s keelboat.
At both the 2004 Athens and 2008 Beijing Olympic Games sailing competitions, women represented 35 per cent of the competing athletes. That is a 32 per cent increase on women’s participation in the sailing events at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games.
At the 2012 London Olympic Games there will be four women’s sailing events, including Women’s Match Racing, which will make its debut on the Olympic Programme.
In total, 90 medals have been won by women sailors at the Olympic Games. Alessandra Sensini of Italy is the only female sailor to have won four medals – one gold, one silver and two bronze.
The ISAF Women’s Match Racing World Championship was first held in Genoa, Italy in 1999 and has been contested annually ever since.
The new Olympic boat, the ISAF Elliott 6m made its debut at the ISAF Sailing World Cup event in Kiel, Germany, in June 2009. The Elliot 6m will be used for Women’s Match Racing at Perth 2011 and subsequently at the 2012 London Olympic Games. The Elliott 6m was chosen as the official equipment for the Women’s Match Racing event at the 2008 ISAF annual conference, in Madrid.
More than 70 Elliott 6ms were built and distributed in 2009 to the 16 countries that have requested them through the ISAF allocation plan. These countries include Israel and China, where match racing programmes are being newly established, as well as countries with long-standing match racing histories.
In 2009, the Women's International Match Racing Association (WIMRA) held Women’s Match Racing clinics in Greece, El Salvador, Mexico, China, Israel, Croatia, Peru, Korea, and South Africa.
These clinics have introduced match racing to sailors with strong racing backgrounds, including past Olympians in other events. These sailors are now competing on the international circuit and moving their way up the ISAF World Match Racing Rankings.
The ISAF World Match Racing Ranking list for women has seen an increase of 24 per cent since the ISAF Council voted to include Women’s Match Racing as an event in the 2012 London Olympic Games sailing competition, in Great Britain. This growth in popularity is expected to continue.
For more information, please visit the Women’s International Match Racing Association website or the ISAF website
Elliot 6 Class Rules