Why no aussies in the olympics?

Actually 245 kids at the IQ Youth and Junior Worlds not 275 but who's counting.

Seeing we are talking about 3 different IQ setups here.
What is the price of :
1. IQ Foil 95 Senior complete
2. IQ Foil 85 Youth complete
3. IQ Foil 85 Junior complete

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Mitch Pearson said..

AUS4 said..
Actually 245 kids at the IQ Youth and Junior Worlds not 275 but who's counting.Seeing we are talking about 3 different IQ setups here. What is the price of :
1. IQ Foil 95 Senior complete
2. IQ Foil 85 Youth complete
3. IQ Foil 85 Junior complete

This is old but gives an idea

Yes prices seem to be increasing. Here is the Greece pricing in Euros for each as of today 13 Aug. 2021 and the AUD conversion. see: tikishop.gr/product-category/iqfoil-class/complete-packages/

The price of :
1. IQ Foil 95 Senior complete: 9,519.00 EUR say approx: AUD$15,231.88
2. IQ Foil 85 Women complete: 9,399.00 EUR say approx: AUD$15,039.86
3. IQ Foil 85 Youth/Junior complete: 5,949.00 EUR say approx: AUD$9,519.32

I guess if you elect to not take the 66 cm fin for example you may save $822 !

Where is the Australian retailers advertised pricing ?

.......because no one races windsurfers much here - and especially the Olympic class.
We prefer to bag it and collectively do little for the sport overall. Unfortunately it is becoming less and less relevant.

At least being the host Olympic nation you can have a competitor in every sport without having to qualify.

Two gold medals certainly great including the gold medal hatrick completed in the Laser now by the same top coach of Tom Slingsby, Tom Burton and Matt Wearn the latest gold medal winner from WA. Aussie iQFoil candidates time to get ready for Paris...Maybe someone like Brendan Todd or Lars Kleppich will come out of retirement and give it a go on the foil.

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RichardG said..
Two gold medals certainly great including the gold medal hatrick completed in the Laser now by the same top coach of Tom Slingsby, Tom Burton and Matt Wearn the latest gold medal winner from WA. Aussie iQFoil candidates time to get ready for Paris...Maybe someone like Brendan Todd or Lars Kleppich will come out of retirement and give it a go on the foil.

Steve Allen is currently representing Australia at the IQfoil world. Not long after a hip surgery.

Great that Steve Allen competed in the event and qualified Australia. Nathan Outteridge (Australian gold medallist 2012, London and Silver in Rio in 49er, Americas Cup sailor and SailGP sailor) is on the iQFoil international governing board so possibly reflecting on that, one may potentially expect more and more Australians to be in iQFoil and possibly also some scope for international events in Australia. On the other hand RSX was very Eurocentric so will iQFoil be different ? Hopefully so but windsurfing competitively has become more Eurocentric and is likely to remain so for some time. The answer might be many Asian, Australasian and Oceanian events and this is where the local national class association when it forms presumably may care to focus in part.

IMO Australia has enough talent to have a complete elite squad. And yes its a fact we do qualify for the Olympics every time by privateers but they get blocked by Australian Sailing.

The policy is unless you are a real medal chance we will not send you. And AS will say something like, its ok for you to be Aussie Champ and Qualify for the games and become a Olympian but we want to put the extra pressure on you to go the extra mile and to medal.

But the real reason is funding. If AS has 5 teams going and all 5 medal then they receive massive funding same as Australia Swimming! If they send 10 teams get the same result of 5 medals then they get a lot less cash.

Guys you have to understand they are a lot of hangers on traveling the world having parties going out to endless dinners etc etc. We just cant jeopardise that!!!

Oh and another thing. There is no real understanding of what it takes to be good at Windsurfing by AS in upper management. Yes they are good at sit down boats but windsurfing is not only handling, speed, tactics, strategy, Psychology its also extreme fitness. It takes 3 cycles to develop this so you have to expose the juniors to worlds or European champs early in life. AS said before London, ok yes we will send one of you, but then they didn't!! This broke a lot of trust in the fleets in Brisbane, Sydney and Perth. Its kinda hard to ask somebody to take 12yrs of their life and probably over or close to a million dollars as a privateer.

So I think this is why we are not at the Olympics.

Arthur Brett is the AS Pathway Coordinator Windfoiling. He is responsible for the AS IQFoil team. That's about all I know.

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JustinL said..
Arthur Brett is putting out a lot of good positive messaging. Former top windsurfer. Onwards and upwards ??
I believe whoever the best Aussie is they should go Marseille even if they aren't top 10. So a policy change.
Grae Morris is sydney has a army of talent pushing him, Julien Savina in QLD is a true champion. Nathan Outeridge is holding his own in the NZ fleets. What about Tom slingsby he is a incredible foiler get him involved and there are so many more also in the girls fleet aswell.

Slingsby probably can win on anything (two time current Moth world champion and others...) so he would be a great candidate if he can bring himself to want to do it and he has the time away from his many commitments.

Suggest the iQfoil sailors form an incorporated national association specific for their class, become directly affiliated with AS and turbocharge growth and resolve selection issues in direct dialogue with AS. A clear direct focus is needed to avoid being diluted by other windsurfing classes but nevertheless they can work in conjunction with AWA as well. It is also a good way to seek to promote windfoiling and avoid the kiting getting too much limelight as I see a threat and an opportunity there at the same time. Good luck with the effort.

www.sailweb.co.uk/2020/08/15/aussie-sailing-to-focus-on-kite-and-board-foil-racing/

www.australiansailingteam.com.au/news/palk-and-brett-set-to-guide-australias-foiling-future/

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Chris 249 said..

JustinL said..
IMO Australia has enough talent to have a complete elite squad. And yes its a fact we do qualify for the Olympics every time by privateers but they get blocked by Australian Sailing.

The policy is unless you are a real medal chance we will not send you. And AS will say something like, its ok for you to be Aussie Champ and Qualify for the games and become a Olympian but we want to put the extra pressure on you to go the extra mile and to medal.

But the real reason is funding. If AS has 5 teams going and all 5 medal then they receive massive funding same as Australia Swimming! If they send 10 teams get the same result of 5 medals then they get a lot less cash.

Guys you have to understand they are a lot of hangers on traveling the world having parties going out to endless dinners etc etc. We just cant jeopardise that!!!

Oh and another thing. There is no real understanding of what it takes to be good at Windsurfing by AS in upper management. Yes they are good at sit down boats but windsurfing is not only handling, speed, tactics, strategy, Psychology its also extreme fitness. It takes 3 cycles to develop this so you have to expose the juniors to worlds or European champs early in life. AS said before London, ok yes we will send one of you, but then they didn't!! This broke a lot of trust in the fleets in Brisbane, Sydney and Perth. Its kinda hard to ask somebody to take 12yrs of their life and probably over or close to a million dollars as a privateer.

So I think this is why we are not at the Olympics.

I know you know your stuff, but can I ask a couple of questions?

1- Sure, pumping brings in a huge amount of fitness but what is the objective measure that states that windsurfers require significantly more fitness than say Finns (they claimed to be the most athletic because they reckoned they generated more power) or Lasers, where there are huge fleets of potential Olympians and where fitness is very important, as Dr Blackburn seems to say?

By the way, given that Olympic medal aspirants all work incredibly hard and none of them have more than 24/7 in a week, if windsurfing requires extreme fitness then it must mean that Olympic windsurfers spend a greater percentage of their time working on fitness than (say) Olympic Laser sailors do. If so, what do Olympic windsurfers sacrifice in order to spend more time on physical fitness?

2- Guys like Ben O'Connor go from being noobs to achieving finishes like fourth in the Tour de France inside two Olympic cycles. Cycling is a much bigger sport than windsurfing, so why could Ben go from never having done a race to #4 in the Tour within two cycles if windsurfers need three?

Let me make it clear - I'm very well aware that cycling is different to windsurfing in many ways. However on the purely physical side Ben O'Connor is certainly far from exceptional. A depressing number of top cyclists have gone almost straight from noob to world class because of their exceptional natural talent.

If fitness is so important in Olympic windsurfing then why does it take more cycles than being competitive in (say) pro cycling? And if inherited characteristics like Co2 max are as important in Olympic windsurfing as in cycling, then should those whose genes happened to roll other ways really care about what happens to those whose genes allegedly fit the requirements of Olympic windsurfing?

3- I'm not attacking your points, I'm asking for more information. I know that in many ways windsurfing is incomparably more complex than cycling, which I used for a comparison above, and therefore Olympians need more training in technique, tactics, etc. I'm just interested in the issues.

this is from a Team GBR training guide;

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RichardG said..
Suggest the iQfoil sailors form an incorporated national association specific for their class, become directly affiliated with AS and turbocharge growth and resolve selection issues in direct dialogue with AS. A clear direct focus is needed to avoid being diluted by other windsurfing classes but nevertheless they can work in conjunction with AWA as well. It is also a good way to seek to promote windfoiling and avoid the kiting getting too much limelight as I see a threat and an opportunity there at the same time. Good luck with the effort.

www.sailweb.co.uk/2020/08/15/aussie-sailing-to-focus-on-kite-and-board-foil-racing/

www.australiansailingteam.com.au/news/palk-and-brett-set-to-guide-australias-foiling-future/

I think your wrong, I was a member of the Australian RSX association which was set up the same way you are suggesting. There was no benefit in terms of influence on policy decisions with AS. If anything it was less influence, the RSX assoc was a dozen members affiliated with AS whereas the AWA has over 1000 members affiliated with AS.

Now I know you think the AWA does nothing but organise insurance but again your wrong, the relationship between AS and AWA is strong and getting stronger and efforts are ongoing around the country through the windsurfing state bodies to grow the IQ Olympic fleet.

This is an example of WQ (the QLD part of the AWA) working with AS and a Yacht club to grow the IQ fleet, the funding application was put in over a year ago and was done so with the support of AS and RQYS and its success hinged on the collaboration between all three entities.

www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/Windsurfing/Queensland/Windsurfing-Queensland-windfoil-racing-equipment-purchase

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Paducah said..




Short version: Cycling is a sport where tactics can reward the physically talented and trained. But you can have mediocre tactics and an excellent engine and do very well. Especially in a Grand Tour, having the physical engine, right body type and ability to recover are paramount.
Sailing is where the physically talented and trained can better execute the tactics. If your tactics are mediocre, it's almost impossible for physical fitness to overcome them.

Long version:
One big difference in windfoil racing and cycling is the tactical side. At the pro level in cycling, you have a team director screaming in your ear piece the whole race (however, in the Olympics they don't allow this) as well as your teammates/team captain on the road. I'm not taking anything away from the tactical side of cycling, it's a lot more than cranking the pedals hard. But you definitely have help in figuring out which wheels to follow and which breaks to cover. In windsurfing and most sailing, the skipper has to make their own decisions and having done just a bit of both (puts me on the left side of the Dunning-Kruger curve ), windsurf racing has more elements to learn and compute. Also, a pro cyclist really doesn't have to tune his/her gear - it's done by a mechanic and even the positioning on the bike is done many times by a specialist. Courses can be scouted and learned so there's less variability there, too.

As well, the "noobs" that do well in cycling almost invariably have an extensive background in similar sports e.g. running, cross-country (O'Connor) etc. so the engine has been trained for a long time. They may be cycling noobs but not competition noobs.

A last thing in favor of cyclists, especially Europe based ones, is the shear number of available competitions so they can race, rinse, repeat several times a week. Sure, you can do practice races at the club but it's difficult to replicate the intensity of a large scale regatta the same way.

Having said that, it'll be interesting in Paris to see the composition of the fleet as I wouldn't be surprised if there are some "noobs" there.

Yep, you're dead right that windsurfing is far more tactical and more dependent on your genes. Agree about the tactical aspects. I'd say that at a similar level of competitive success, there's more tactics before the start in a windsurfing or sailing race than in an entire cycling race.

I'm far from as serious and quick on a bike as fjdoug is or as I am when sailing, but I've been top 15 or so in the nationals and states masters events I've done on the bike and our scene has seriously quick guys (like a clubmate with two world records in my age category, and pros from our city of 350000 who had better results than the pros from the entire North American continent while I was there). So I've got a fai.r idea of the differences.

It's really interesting (IMHO) is the number of people who have raced boats, bikes and boards and who do better on bikes than in sailing. One guy who was a great national-level Raceboarder but may never have won a nats has moved into cycling and won numerous Masters national titles against a guy who has two world records and a couple of world titles. Another middle-fleet club Laser sailor has won a truckload of state cycling championships. There are other examples that show that despite windsurfing and sailing being fairly small sports, they seem to be as competitive as cycling which is about #4 in the rankings of most popular sports in advanced economies.

So yep, you're right (IMHO) about the fact that stuff like VO2 max and the tactical side mean that you don't need as many years of training in cycling as you do in windsurfing. On the other hand, it's interesting to note that in a class like Lasers you can rise pretty quickly. Tom Slingsby went from about 17th in the state Laser Radials to 2nd, behind an Olympian, in one year. Within six years he went from being a talented lil' kid to the guy who almost beat a defending medallist to the Olympic slot. The Laser coaches seem to be able to instill a pretty good level of tactical and tuning nous, although that may coming from a slanted perspective because we're lucky to have Dr Michael Blackburn as our men's Laser coach.

So yep, windsurfing is very different from cycling but it seems that if the cyclists can handle the physical progression, then probably windsurfers can too. Justin's a seriously quick windsurfer so I'm not dissing him, merely interested in the discussion.

I tend to think that you're right and that the difference is that windsurfing is far more technical, I just wanted to see if that was correct.

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Chris 249 said..

fjdoug said..


this is from a Team GBR training guide;

Interesting. I'd tend to agree that windsurfers are the fittest sailing Olympians, although the stats in that link seem to cover mainly sprint stuff rather than the long haul of Laser and Finn hiking.

I'm partly interested because the Finn sailors have been making a big deal about them being the "most athletic sailors" and that seems to be BS and it would be interesting to see something that proved it.

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