Update 1: Here’s a very interesting quote from someone that, in his own words, benefited from the new scoring system. Germany’s Toni Wilhelm, fourth in the 2012 Olympics, claimed second place Palma last week and this is what he stated: “I benefited from the new system and managed to claim second in Spain. But I still do not think that it is right to devalue the performance of a whole week. It is not the right system for our sport.”
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The Trofeo Princesa Sofia MAPFRE has just come to an end and although racing was undeniably exciting and spectacular, the new scoring system that was introduced last January and tested last week makes one wonder what on earth ISAF was thinking about. Criticism was widespread and ranged from the tame to Darren Bundock’s “crap scoring system”.
According to the new system all events have a Qualifying Series, a Final Series and a Medal Stage. At the conclusion of the Qualifying Series boats are ranked, and their place is reflected as their “Carry Forward Race” score. The Carry Forward (C/F) Race is scored as the first race of the Final Series but can be discarded! Regardless of what a sailor might have done in the “qualifying” races, he or she can start from scratch in the “final” series.
Does this make any sense, either from a spectator’s or an athlete’s point of view? Will this increased emphasis on the final stages of an event bring more spectators, TV viewers, advertizers and sponsorship money into sailing? Will it on the other hand alienate sailors?
What will make sailing more popular?
At the end of the day, what really counts is what will make sailing more popular and more successful, what will attract, short-term, more viewers and spectators and, longer-term, more sailors. Similarly to what the America’s Cup organizers tried at the very beginning of the America’s Cup World Series there seems to be a new way of thinking at the highest levels of the sport that a winner-takes-it-all race or day will spark the interest of the masses and draw them to sailing. If that is so, why doesn’t any other sport have anything similar?
Even in sports where one race or game is sufficient to judge in a fair way the best team, soccer for example, the champion had to advance through a number of stages, with the risk of being eliminated at each one. No team ever pops up in the final, wins it and is declared world champion. Sailing has a dependence on weather conditions that makes it impossible to make a fair assessment of a sailor’s skills in one race or even one single day. If the Olympics are about picking the best athletes in the world who should the best sailor be? The one that is consistent through a week of racing or the one that gets lucky in the last two days?
Sailors obviously don’t want the latter and why should they? What is the purpose of the first days other than put a stress on the sailors and their equipment? Thanks to the social networks it was evident that sailors voted with their feet.
Discus Throw – Javelin Throw – Hammer Throw – Shot Put
In these four track & field events there were, respectively, 41, 42, 38 and 37 athletes that took part in the men’s qualification round at the 2012 Olympics in London. Figures for women were quite similar. Each athlete had three attempts and the best twelve advanced to the finals. The results from the qualification rounds didn’t carry over into the final but still, the qualifying stage eliminated between two thirds and three quarters of the participants. As in all throwing events, the 12 finalists had three attempts apiece, then the top eight competitors received three more attempts. The longest single throw during the final won. The exact same system was used for long jump and triple jump.
So, even such niche sports use a conventional and, more importantly, logical and natural scoring system. There is a reason why they call it a qualifier after all. While on the one hand there is a constant effort to make sailing a “normal” sport by, partly, eliminating the jargon and simplifying elaborate rules, on the other, ISAF is trying to make it even harder to understand for someone that doesn’t have have the slightest clue about sailing.
Try explaining to someone that hasn’t watched a sailing race that the first three days of the event don’t really count! Even the language doesn’t make any sense! The “qualifying” series doesn’t really qualify while the “final” series isn’t really final since it is followed by the medal races. Why make things simple when one can make them complicated?
Experimenting at the highest level of the sport
Even if we assume there was an urgent and undeniable need to make such changes in the scoring system, it is difficult to grasp the logic of making them at the highest Olympic level. The results in the World Cup events will determine the Olympic future of most of the sailors and ISAF thinks it’s appropriate to start experimenting in what they tout as prestigious, world-class sailing events! Aren’t there other lower-level events where results aren’t so crucial in order to experiment?