World Sailing, wake up! Sailing is the most inclusive sport in the world. Prove it!

Sailing is the most inclusive sport in the world. But it doesn’t know it is: it has been excluded from the Paralympics (we wrote about it here), but all it would take is a simple change in the classes chosen for Olympic medals-not Paralympic, Olympic, you got it right-to solve everything for the best by giving a very strong message to the sports world. A choice that would be up to World Sailing, the International Sailing Federation.

This is how, in the proposal of Riccardo Simoneschi, a multi-winner sailor who knows Olympic sailing and leadership dynamics in detail having been in World Sailing for 20 years.

Sailing and inclusion. Less talk, more action

Some time ago I had the opportunity to live through the exclusion of sailing from the Paralympics by witnessing an incredible “forgetfulness” on the part of the people in charge that opened the door to that decision.

WHEREAS, I find the current IOC set up. (International Olympic Committee) as least inclusive as thinkable (Olympics first, Paralympics later, separate etc etc…) I was amazed by the repeated exclusion of our sport, which, by its very nature (unique, along with horseback riding), boasts recognized characteristics useful for the evolution and improvement of human capabilities and has therefore always been used for the support of those less fortunate than us.

Many have commented on the topic before me, so I try from a different perspective that wants to “raise” on the current situation that sees at the Olympic Games Ten “classes” that, in essence, provide space for athletes with extremely similar physical characteristics to each other and definitely interchangeable, at least physically, between classes.

A choice dictated not by a vision of our sport but by evaluations of a different nature that I do not want to comment on here despite knowing them very well.

In this situation, however, sailing could have a unique opportunity that would revive it in terms of popularity, secure its primacy, and carry a true and absolute message of inclusion by distancing us from the super-elitist image that has always accompanied it.

Inclusion: a largely abused term. Basically, all that would be needed would be to remove one of the duplicates among the current Olympic classes (yes, duplicates since they require virtually equal athletes) and insert one boat among the many existing ones for equal competition between able-bodied and disabled athletes! There are many classes that already race this way and where it is often the handicapped athletes who come out on top.

To do so, sailing does not have to ask anyone’s permission, it would be enough to choose a suitable Olympic boat (I repeat among the many existing ones: 2.4, Sonar, Skud, RS Venture, Hansa 303… you decide) or design one perhaps from recycled material.

A truly inclusive and timely message that would mark an era by revitalizing the image of our sport that already expresses so many values. I would really like to see the IOC contesting it, making itself completely unpopular….

Riccardo Simoneschi*

*Riccardo Simoneschi (Genoa, 1959), as a sailor, won countless titles, including world, European, and national championships. Both on Olympic classes and on internationally significant one-designs.

In his career, he has held prestigious international roles such as presidency of ISCYRA (International Star Class Yacht Racing Association)-during his tenure he “saved” the Star from Olympic exclusion-and within World Sailing (from 2000 to 2020). He has been sports director of the Italian Yacht Club and is currently president and organizer of the Pink Ribbon Tour.