Sailing WS 49er, 49erFX & Nacra 17 World Championships 2025

[clemsonbeav 270]

It's an interesting system.  If you're fourth going into the medal race...your options are go home with no medal, or go home with gold.  (And the top two going in know they're getting a medal of some color.)

[phelps 8,403]

mixed Nacra 17

 

 Gianluigi Ugolini & Maria Giubilei,  John Gimson & Anna Burnet,  Willemijn Offerman & Scipio Houtman and  Brin Liddell & Rhuannan Brown are through to the Gold Medal race

[phelps 8,403]

5 minutes ago, clemsonbeav said:

It's an interesting system.  If you're fourth going into the medal race...your options are go home with no medal, or go home with gold.  (And the top two going in know they're getting a medal of some color.)

some kind of consolation, but if you dominated the whole week and end up with just a silver medal, well, I don't think it's that fair (especially because the GM race is a 10-minute sail, it doesn't really give you the chance to prove anything, you just need to take a great start and most of the work is done...on the other hand, a missed start in 18 races -but in the decisive one- could cost you the gold)

[clemsonbeav 270]

3 minutes ago, phelps said:

some kind of consolation, but if you dominated the whole week and end up with just a silver medal, well, I don't think it's that fair (especially because the GM race is a 10-minute sail, it doesn't really give you the chance to prove anything, you just need to take a great start and most of the work is done...on the other hand, a missed start in 18 races -but in the decisive one- could cost you the gold)

Yes, it is interesting.  I can see how athletes don't like it.  I know scoring systems change in some other sports (I'm thinking about sport climbing), but it is interesting to change how a sport is won in competition.  Even in American football, they change some rules that affect the end of the game if the score is tied.

[phelps 8,403]

well, with only 4 boats competing, it's basically a (often boring) match race, like you could see in the Nacra GM race

 

started ahead of and they had only to control them, coming to an easy win in the end

 

maybe I'm a little biased, but I don't like this format, these boats are not kite or windsurf (and also in that case I'd rather go back to the old traditional format)

[phelps 8,403]

mixed Nacra 17

 

Gold:  John Gimson & Anna Burnet

Silver:  Gianluigi Ugolini & Maria Giubilei

Bronze:  Willemijn Offerman & Scipio Houtman

 

Full Results

https://nacra17.org/event/2025-world-championship/#nacra17-results

[phelps 8,403]

please, note that the Full Results pages have still to be updated at this moment, I hope they do it quite quickly 

[clemsonbeav 270]

12 minutes ago, phelps said:

well, with only 4 boats competing, it's basically a (often boring) match race, like you could see in the Nacra GM race

 

started ahead of and they had only to control them, coming to an easy win in the end

 

maybe I'm a little biased, but I don't like this format, these boats are not kite or windsurf (and also in that case I'd rather go back to the old traditional format)

I read an article (I think it was on the 49er website) talking about how the change is more for TV/casual fans, as it's easier to understand where 1st place in the race = gold medal.

 

As someone new to the sport, I don't have much to compare it to, but I can understand how it changes the sport. (And the change due to TV/fans ultimately = that it's due to $$, which is unfortunate but real.)

[phelps 8,403]

1 minute ago, clemsonbeav said:

I read an article (I think it was on the 49er website) talking about how the change is more for TV/casual fans, as it's easier to understand where 1st place in the race = gold medal.

 

As someone new to the sport, I don't have much to compare it to, but I can understand how it changes the sport. (And the change due to TV/fans ultimately = that it's due to $$, which is unfortunate but real.)

yeah, many sports are taking this way, but I'm not sure the risk/reward ratio is favourable to them in the mid/long terms

 

we'll see...

 

as of Today, I'm more disappointed than excited by the new rules

[clemsonbeav 270]

1 minute ago, phelps said:

yeah, many sports are taking this way, but I'm not sure the risk/reward ratio is favourable to them in the mid/long terms

 

we'll see...

 

as of Today, I'm more disappointed than excited by the new rules

At least with these, speaking of money, I can watch it freely on YouTube, vs. other sports like curling and archery, where everything is behind a paywall.