PERTH 2011 ISAF Sailing World Championships

A significant overhaul of the selection process for the 2012 US Olympic Sailing Team has been made official with the release of the Selection Procedures for the 2012 Olympic Team Trials.

Long gone is the single American event, winner-take-all format that had been designed to simulate the pressure and intensity that the sailors would experience at the Olympic Games. In its place are two international events that will be used for the fleet racing, while the Women’s Match Racing event will use an event in Miami, Florida and another in Weymouth, England.

US Sailing Olympic Sailing Committee Chair Dean Brenner explained why the OSC was making this change.

“The Olympic sailing programme’s primary mission is to field a team of athletes most capable of achieving success at the Olympic Games, and we believe this new system gives us the greatest chance of achieving that mission in 2012,” Mr Brenner said.

“The world of Olympic class competition has evolved dramatically in the past 10 years, and our selection system needed to evolve as well.  Success at the Games requires year-round training and year-round competition against the best sailors in the world, and the Olympic sailing programme needs to support the athletes who are committed to pursuing full-time campaigns,” he said.

If you look at all the things we’ve been doing over the past six years, including our national team selection and funding structure, the common denominator has been our focus on international competition.  Our decision to change the selection trials to a system of international competition is the just latest example of this new focus of the OSC.”

He said that the new system had several merits, when compared to the traditional trials structure.

“Most of the top countries use a combination of international events.  We were one of the few countries not using some kind of international selection procedures.  With the proper fleet quality and quantity, we still believe a winner-takes-all event in the U.S. is the best method of selection. However, if you lack either quality or quantity, the value of that method drops dramatically,” said Mr Brenner.

“The move away from the traditional domestic trials will disappoint some people who enjoy the opportunity to compete on US soil. While we appreciate some of the other benefits of a domestic trials system, our primary mission is clear. If we can achieve these other benefits while also appropriately pursuing our primary mission, great. If we can’t, we have to focus on the primary mission.”

Fleet race trial events:

Skandia Sail for Gold Regatta, Weymouth/Portland, England, June 5-11,

Perth 2011 ISAF Sailing World Championships, Perth, Australia, December 3-18, 2011

Women’s Match Racing trial events:

Miami, Florida in October 2011 Weymouth, England in spring 2012  (dates to be announced)

- Article courtesy of Scuttlebutt - http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/

Photograph: US Sailing Team representative Anna Tunnicliffe trains in Fremantle, in front of the Maritime Museum, in preparation for the Perth 2011 ISAF Sailing World Championships.