The Danish perspective on Olympic Sailing

In the world of future-minded national authorities, the Danes are among the most forward thinking. The 29er class caught up with Danish Sailing Association Secretary General Dan Ibsen to hear how they view the world.

Here is the final and most important question in an interview with Dan Ibsen:

29er: If you could write the slate for the 2016 Olympics, what would it include?

Dan: If I personally should recommend a slate for future Olympics, it should include both world wide spread classes, where many different smaller and larger nations can compete, but the rest of the disciplines MUST be high performance and thereby fast and visually attractive for spectators and TV-media and live-streaming on Internet. Among the last four disciplines there should be skiff for both men and women , multihull with double trapeze and asymmetrical spinnaker and personally I believe that kiteboarding as soon as possible should be included in the Olympics. It is a problem with only 10 medals in sailing, and I personally believe that ISAF should ask IOC for more medals in the future; Other sports are getting more medals, but we cannot expect to have more sailors. This can be solved by partly continental qualifiers for the Olympics, so as many countries as possible get a possibility to qualify for the Olympics  at their continent. Two more medals would help sailing to have a better spread of events/disciplines, including the ones that can expose the sport to spectators and live media.

For the full interview, check here: http://www.29er.org/