World Sailing Votes to Retain Laser for 2024 Olympics

Published May 20, 2019

World Sailing Council meeting in London on Sunday 19th May decided to retain the Laser as the Olympic one person dinghy equipment for 2024 Paris Olympics.

The previous day the World Sailing Equipment Committee had met, also in London, and voted to recommend to the World Sailing Council that the RS Aero be selected for Paris 2024 Olympics. Their voting was 9 for Aero, 3 for Laser and no votes for either the D-Zero or Melges 14.

This followed tenders from 8 classes of boat and sea trials and detail evaluation of four (Laser, Aero, D-Zero and Melges 14) by an Evaluation Panel. The Evaluation Panel’s report HERE concluded that the Aero and Laser were suitable Olympic equipment but it scored the Aero higher on most of its criteria.

The recommendation from the Equipment Committee was rejected by the 19th May World Council meeting and so the process moved to a ballot where World Council Members cast votes on the four boats. The results of these votes were;

Men’s Dinghy 36 for Laser 5 for Aero and none for D-Zero and Melges 14
Women’s Dinghy 37 for Laser 4 for Aero and none for D-Zero and Melges 14

The International Laser Class Association on 20 May said the following;

“The vote was an important milestone but is not the end of the process. All contractual agreements must be successfully concluded by 1 August or the council will select new Equipment. ILCA has been working to ensure that the class is able to implement World Sailing’s FRAND compliance policy, which is a requirement for Olympic Equipment.

ILCA is looking forward to a scheduled meeting later this week (22 May) with representatives of World Sailing, Performance Sailcraft Australia, Performance Sailcraft Japan, and LaserPerformance to look for ways we can move forward together for the benefit of sailors and the sport worldwide.”

More information is on the World Sailing website HERE.