Announcements
Star Class Selected for 2012 Olympic Games
By Bill Allen, ISCYRA President
Nov 14, 2008, 16:01

I am very happy to report that ISAF Council today voted for the Star as the Men's keelboat for the 2012 Olympic Games. The Star was put forth with 8 other classes as a group, and passed council easily. The RSX Windsurfer (men and women), Laser, Laser radial, 470 (men) 49er (men), Finn, and Star were voted in as a group.

On a subsequent ballot, the women's 470 beat the 29erXX - 19-16 in a surprising vote. For women's match racing, the final decision for equipment is the Elliott 6m.

A few other items were resolved that have some interest to the Star Class:

The World Cup will commence in 2009, as a combination of the seven ISAF Grade one events (not Star Class events). The top 20 in each event will be scored (20 points for 1st, 1 for 20th, etc) and the scores will be cumulative, with no throw-out events. There will not be a World Cup Grand Final.

The 2011 ISAF Combined World's should be a great event in Perth Australia. They have a large budget and plan to involve the whole town of Freemantle. The media attention should be great. The specific qualification process and racing format will be resolved later.

The concept of a second Combined World's in each Olympic quadrenniel has not had support. The classes oppose it, and Events Committee and Council feel it may be a good concept but not at this time, with the World Cup just starting. And the Perth organizer has stated that without the Olympic qualifier status, he would not have been able to obtain sponsors. So it appears very unlikely that another combined World's would be held until at least 2017.

Claude Bonanni, Barbara Vosbury, John Koopman (technical), Mark Reynolds(athletes commission) and myself represented the class here in Madrid.


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