World Sailing
World Sailing has laid out a draft two-year roadmap for continued good governance based upon a consultation with member national associations and stakeholders at its Mid-Year Meetings. The members approved a number of changes to its constitution and regulations, which mark the start of the implementation of the modernisation plan.

• World Sailing’s Constitution concerning non-discrimination is now in line with the Olympic Charter. World Sailing will promote the sport of sailing in all of its branches regardless of colour, gender, physical ability, sexual orientation, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth of other status;
• The Executive Committee will now be referred to as the Board of Directors of the Federation;
• The Secretariat will now be called the Executive Office;
• The Chairman of the Athletes’ Commission is now a permanent voting member of the Board of Directors;
• Future venues of the Annual Conference and Annual General Meeting will be determined via a bidding process and vote by members at the AGM;
• Strengthened procedures for identifying and managing conflicts of interest.

Sailing World Cup 2017
The intention of the World Sailing Executive is that the 2017 SWC will be just Hyeres and Weymouth, maybe an event in Japan in October, but not at the Olympic venue plus a ‘Final’ in Melbourne. Miami and Qingdao are no longer to be SWC venues. In addition quotas for the SWC are likely to change. Double handed Classes will have their quote reduced from 40 to 30 boats, with the laser and radial increasing to 50 boats and the RSX and Finn staying at 40 boats.

It appears that qualifying will be done for all 3 events at once, with 18 spots going to the top 18 from the Rankings and the remaining 12 spots going 2 per continent… which introduces these Continental events.  Asia will therefore get 2 spots per class to get into the SWC for the year.

Events for 2020
The World Sailing Executive has asked World Sailing Council to open up the slate of events / Equipment for Tokyo 2020. Previously it had been agreed that all 10 events would remain the same to provide some continuity. There will be an electronic vote in the next few weeks where Council will be asked to open up the Events. The decision of the Council will be conveyed to the IOC and the final IOC decision for 2020 will be made in June 2017 and they will either ratify the proposal made by World Sailing or make a decision of their own.

In parallel with the opening of the slate of events request, World Sailing is requesting existing events/ Classes to consider how they might “evolve” and consider “format” as a way of differentiating the Classes and showcasing our sport in the best light.  If World Sailing Council votes ‘no’ to opening the 2020 Events then World Sailing is hoping that reforming existing events will be enough to show the IOC that we are complying with their “Vision 2020”.  Additionally there is a strong push from the IOC to get kitesurfing in by 2020 and the challenge is to figure out how to combine that with the current 10 events.

Olympic Qualifying
Olympic qualifying for 2020 is likely to be broadly similar as it was for 2016. However the proposal this time is for approximately 40% of places being allocated at the World Sailing Championships in Aarhus in 2018, 30% of places to the Class World Championships in 2019, and then 1 spot per continent.