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Aug 25, 2008, 2:08 PM
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2008 Olympics - 49er Medal Race
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By Charley Cook, Principal Race Officer, 2008 Olympic sailing events:
Much has been written about the 49er Medal Race. A lot of what I've read is simply wrong. I'll address two issues: the conditions, and the arbitration brought by Italy and Spain.
The conditions weren't nearly as extreme as has been reported. At the start the race committee measured 18 knots. We saw a maximum of 22 knots. The time weighted average was 19 knots. This is well within the limits publicly announced by ISAF in October 2007. The 49er class President was on venue. A former 49er class Race Manager was on the race management team for the Medal Race. Both agreed that the class would have conducted racing in those conditions at a class championship.
Two boats failed to finish. One of those because it suffered a broken mast; a common occurrence in the class.
Two teams requested redress, claiming that the race should not have been conducted in the conditions. One was Denmark (for reasons that will be clear as you read this). At the hearing virtually every team acknowledged that the conditions were challenging, but within reasonable limits. Many teams indicated that the problem was that they'd all lost weight for the expected light air conditions and hadn't practiced much in conditions like the Medal Race. One of the unhappy teams had been seen on the race course sitting on the bottom of their upside down boat. Two separate jury boats and one race committee boat offered assistance. The same response was given - the team was waiting for the time limit to expire and said it wanted a jury hearing.
Were the conditions tough? Yes. Were they dangerous? Absolutely not. Remember, we're talking about skiff sailing. Crash and burns are normal. We chose a skiff for that very reason.
Finally, the arbitration. Denmark broke her rig approximately 45 minutes before the start. The coach advised us of the incident and asked that we postpone (which we declined). They rushed ashore and, with a great deal of help from the Croatian team, rigged the Croatian boat and rushed back to the race course. The coach advised us that DEN would be racing in a 49er marked CRO. The measurer on the courses said he'd deal with it ashore. DEN crossed the starting line 3 minutes 57 seconds after the start. 4 seconds later and they would have been scored DNF. After the race the measurer thoroughly inspected the CRO boat. It complied with all rules except: no on board camera (2.5 kg), wrong country flag, crew names and country code on mainsail and wrong country code on bow. The measurers made a report to the race committee about these deficiencies. The Racing Rules of Sailing required us to file a protest when we received the report. We had no choice.
The International Jury took almost 4 hours of testimony. They concluded that the discrepancies were not deliberate and gave DEN no advantage.
The Italian and Spanish Olympic Committees filed for arbitration before the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). They claimed that the International Jury should have disqualified DEN (the sailing instructions called for discretionary penalties for identification and measurement breaches). A panel of three CAS arbitrators affirmed the decision of the International Jury.
There are three groups that showed incredible sportsmanship and deserve lots of respect. The Croatian team rallied to help DEN compete in the Medal Race. The Danish team showed amazing focus when it jumped into a boat it had never sailed, which was tuned for light air, and sailed in those tough conditions. Finally, the Germans stood to move from Bronze to Silver if DEN was disqualified. Despite that interest, they advised CAS that they supported the decision of the International Jury. They were quoted as having said: "Better to win an honest Bronze than a dirty Silver."
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