The Council and Events Committee of the met this past weekend for the 2010 ISAF Mid-Year Meeting at the Ramada Hotel on the shores of Lake Balaton in Hungary. This traditionally deals with matters deferred from the previous Annual Meeting on which further information and consideration are required. Indeed this was the main agenda item for the Events Committee.
Olympic Commission Chairman, Phil Jones (AUS) presented his comission's report on the alignment of the ISAF Olympic goals with those of the IOC. It should be emphasised that this is a consultative document open to amendment. In effect the document is a SWAT analysis of where the ISAF stands in relation to other sports taking part in the summer Olympic Games.
The key issues to consider urgently include [in no particular order]:
a) The growth in the number of member national authorities needs to be ramped up considerably especially in Asia and Africa
b) Digital communciations technlogy has to be harnessed in the presentation of sailing to the public
c) The calendar of ISAF events has to be changed to better refelect the IOC's desire for Federations to reduce the cost of Olympic Qualification as much as possible
d) ISAF has to take a longer term view of the events that it selects for inclusion in the Olympic Regatta.
There was unanimous agreement that the ISAF cannot leave this important report to sit and gather dust. Action must be taken and quickly to implement the major recommendations of the Olympic Comissions Report. It is understood that submissions dealing with key issues will be made to the ISAF November Conference so that the necessary changes can be made to the Qualification System for the 2016 Olympic Regatta.
Note:
i. No discussions on the Youth Olympics will take place until the IOC have conducted their own 'Post Mortem' on the first edition which takes place in Singapore this summer. It is understood that the 2014 Youth Olympics will take place in Nanjing, China.
ii. Deferred submissions which referred to Olympic equipment or events that were on the Events Committee agenda were not considered because their meeting took place before the OC Report was presented to the ISAF Council.
