To whom it may concern:
 
After the Qingdao event I have some second thoughts about the live television coverage of sailing on the Olympics.
 
The nicest televised images we all have ever seen of sailing are the ones produced after the formula 40 cat races (15 years ago!), after the America's cup and the yearly PWA and Formula event summaries.

These movies use all possible features and explain in normal language and with accurate drawings and GPS info what is happening.
 
The most interesting moments of sailing on TV are: starts, mark roundings, finishes and . . . crashes. For the rest Sailing on TV is mostly boring except if the commentary is very good and able to explain what to look for. This is very similar to rally-car racing: Exciting are the starts, the turns and the crashes. All the rest is boring . . . not interesting for live television but very exciting if correctly presented.
 
The live covering in Qingdao had helicopters, boats, gps info, animation tools, camera on boats and still BOB(?) was not able to produce exciting live television.

I believe that the main reason for this is the lack of sailing experience of the end-producers. With a similar amount of camera time a specialised sport producer can make exciting live television for F1, Moto GP, rally, . . .

A clear example of this statement is the way mark roundings were shown on screen in Qingdao. Instead of showing the virtual position at the end of the medal race calculating the last mark rounding we saw on screen only the mark rounding order . . .we needed a piece of paper with the ranking before the medal race to calculate ourselves who was in first, second . . . position. Talking about live scoring . . .

There are 2 solutions for this: 
- find and train the end-producers to make better live coverage

or 
- forget live coverage and prepare an exciting amount of images to be distributed 30 minutes to 2 hours after the race where in a 1 minute, 5 minute and 15 minute program the race with all its exciting moments is captured. Interviews could be used in the 15 minute version but we need flash, exciting production to make our sport attractive to the viewers.

As I read in a separate comment: "The only way is to have a 5 minutes summary for each class at the end of the day, like in Barcelona '92 games. And very important with the help of a virtual spectator, like in the AC. Start, first meters, mark roundings, important moments, with a good commentary and the virtual spectator help. Forget about the live coverage of a full race. There are too many chances of having the race postponed anyway."
 
Ending the idea that live coverage is absolutely necessary would also reduce the pressure on the race committee and give them some breathing space to wait for conditions that actually showcase our sport. Too many medal races were held in wrong conditions (49R, windsurfers..). There were 3 reserve days not used!

Bruno De Wannemaeker
ITO team Alfa.