Since the ISAF Mid Year Meeting and the narrow vote to deselect windsurfing and the RS:X for the 2016 Olympic
Regatta in Rio de Janeiro, the class has been working on
many levels to get this decision reversed under the direction
of its crisis management group within the Executive Committee
The opinion of our legal team is that the decision was perverse and unfair and so so we issued a claim on August 1st 2012 in the High court in London for the decision to be judicially reviewed. This is based on a number of assertions including a failure by ISAF to have full regard to the designated criteria for the selection of Olympic classes and to ignore a previous decision that a full evaluation would be carried out on both the RS:X and kiteboard
Whilst we regret having to proceed in this way, we felt that we had no alternative given the fact that ISAF declined our request for the matter to be reconsidered on a 50/50 vote at the Council meeting in November 2012.
28,385 people from around the world have signed the on-line petition against the ISAF decision. 18,812 have joined the 'Appeal against kitesurfing in the Olympics' Facebook Group. 13,209 are following the 'Vote Windsurfing' Facebook page. The tone of the discussions in these forums has been one of disbelief that two colorful, dynamic, media friendly global events could be so easily discarded.
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
The RS:X equipment by Neil Pryde Windsurfing was selected in 2004 by ISAF after an open evaluation and was the supplied equipment for the men and women 'boards' events in the 2008 Olympic Games and is now being raced in the ongoing 2012 Olympic Regatta.
For more information see the attached briefing document
iPad Lobby document here:
http://itunes.apple.com/gb/book/this-is-windsurfing/id533430355?mt=11
MS Word Lobby document here:
http://www.rsxclass.com/download/ThisIsWindsurfing.doc.zip
Vote Windsurfing Facebook Page
https://www.facebook.com/votewindsurfing
Petition: Keep Windsurfing as Olympic Discipline
http://www.change.org/petitions/isaf-keep-windsurfing-as-olympic-discipline
