Olympic sailing rules, scoring system and format: How can sailors qualify for medal races
Although sailing has been a part of the Olympic programme since the inaugural edition, the races at Athens 1896 were cancelled due to adverse weather conditions. Since then, however, the sport has featured at every edition of the Summer Games, except St. Louis 1904.
Great Britain have been the most successful country in sailing with 66 medals, including 32 gold, 21 silver and 13 bronze medals. The United States of America (USA) are the only other country with more than 50 medals in the discipline.
The sailing competition at the Paris 2024 Olympics comprised 10 medal events with athletes sailing in one or two-person boats. Three new events were introduced for the edition - men's kite, women's kite and mixed dinghy.
The number of sailors competing across the 10 events has been reduced from 350 to 330, with an equal distribution between men and women. Each country is permitted only one boat per event, but sailors can compete in more than one event.
Sailing events at Paris 2024 Olympics
At the Paris 2024 Olympics, sailing had 10 events
- Women's windsurfing
- Men's windsurfing
- Women's skiff
- Men's skiff
- Women's dinghy
- Men's dinghy
- Mixed multihull
- Mixed dinghy
- Men's kite
- Women's kite
Each event has its own set of gold, silver and bronze medals.
Paris 2024 Olympics sailing rules and format
Though the events can be differentiated by the types of boats used, the number and gender of sailors and other technicalities, the competition rules and format are similar.
There are two phases – the opening series and the medal series/races. The number of races in the opening series vary with each event. For instance, the windsurfing events have a series of 20 races, the kite events have 16 races, multihull and skiff have 12 each, and dinghy has 10 races.
At the end of the opening series or knockouts, the medal series or race are held to determine the medal winners.
Some events, however, have knockout rounds. Windsurfing will have quarter-finals and semi-finals before the final round. Kite events have a series of six races in the semi-finals before another series of six races in the final. In dinghy, multihull and skiff events, the medal round involve only the final.
Format of the sailing race course at Paris 2024 Olympics
Races are conducted around a course of marker buoys. A race may be over one to four laps.
The number of laps in each race is decided by the race committee immediately prior to the start of the race and depends upon the wind conditions and the length of the course.
The size of the course and number of laps are adjusted with the aim that the race is completed in the intended time. The orientation of the course is set so that the length of the course is parallel to the wind.
As some legs are oriented to be directly into the wind and boats cannot sail directly into the wind, they must sail a zig-zag course to the mark and as a result, the boats can spread out over a wide area.
The shape of the courses varies for each event, with some sailing a straight upwind/downwind course, while others sail around four marks laid out in a trapezoid shape.
Schedule of sailing races
Sailing is weather dependent; the competition schedule can be regularly changed due to unsuitable wind or sea state. If weather conditions on any given day are not ideal, racing may also be delayed from the scheduled start time until the wind is considered suitable.
Due to weather conditions, up to one extra race per day may be sailed. If a race cannot be started due to the prevailing weather conditions (insufficient or unstable wind, or too much wind) that race is postponed to a later day.
It is possible that due to unacceptable wind conditions, not all scheduled races will be completed by the end of the competition. In such cases a minimum of six races is needed to schedule a medal race or medal series and a minimum of one race must have been sailed in order to award medals. If the medal series or medal race is not completed, medals will be awarded based on the series score for all the prior races.
Paris 2024 Olympics sailing scoring system
In Olympics sailing, a ‘low point’ scoring system is used, where the winner of each race is awarded one point; second place is awarded two points, and so on. If a sailor fails to finish a race or is disqualified, they are awarded one more than the total number of boats in that event. For example, if there are 20 boats in the race, the disqualified sailor will be given 21 points.
While calculating the aggregate total, the points from the worst race performance(s) for each crew are discarded, and the remaining points are summed to calculate the event placing after the opening series.
However, if a sailor picks up points due to disqualification or from a specific race, those points cannot be discarded. The crews with the best (lowest) overall score advance to the medal series or medal race.
Windsurfing medal series
The top 10 boats from the windsurfing opening series make it to the medal series. The boat finishing first compete directly in the final, while the second and third-ranked boats appear in the semi-finals.
Boats ranked fourth to 10th feature in the quarter-finals, from which the top two make it to the semi-finals. The top two boats in the semi-finals join the first-ranked team from the opening series in the final race.
A boat's final rank is relative to its finishing place in the race it was eliminated. For instance, boats in the final are ranked ahead of the semi-final participants, boats in the quarter-finals are ranked ahead of the opening series participants.
Kite medal series
The medal series of the kite events involve a semi-final and the final. The top 10 boats from the opening series make it to the medal series, where the teams ranked first and second make it directly to the final and the remaining eight feature in the semi-finals.
The boats ranked 3rd, 6th, 7th, 10th in the opening series progress to semi-final A, while boats ranked 4th, 5th, 8th, 9th take part in semi-final B. In the leaderboard, boats ranked 3rd and 4th place from the opening series earn two wins, while the boats ranked 5th and 6th place earn one win.
The final rank in this phase is calculated by adding the number of wins obtained in the races of the semi-finals and wins earned in the opening series. The first boat to reach three wins in each semi-final progresses to the final. The remaining boats are eliminated and are ranked according to the total number of wins in the semi-final.
The final of this event comprise four boats - two boats qualifying from the semi-finals and the top two ranked boats from the opening series. The boat ranked 1st in the opening series earn two wins and the boat ranked 2nd earn one win.
The first boat to score three wins is declared the winner with the remaining boats ranked according to the total number of wins in the final.
Medal race for dinghy, skiff and multihull
The top 10 boats from the opening series of dinghy, skill and multihull reach their respective finals.
The race scores for medal races is weighted, where the points are doubled (i.e. two points for the boat ranked 1st, four points for the boat ranked 2nd and so on) and added to the series score. Scores for the medal race cannot be discarded.
In the final race, if a boat does not complete the race or is disqualified, they are handed 22 points. However, they cannot be ranked lower than 10th.
The top three boats will be determined based on the overall score from the opening series and the final.
Differences between Sailing World Championships and Olympics
At the Olympic Games there is only one boat per NOC per event, whereas at the Sailing World Championships, there may be multiple boats per NOC per event.
The number of boats is significantly higher at the Sailing World Championships, requiring a more complex format due to the difficulties in managing a single race with large numbers of boats.
The Sailing World Championships is usually run using a format of splitting competitors into groups within the opening series, usually called a qualifying series and a final series. At the Olympics, the events have only a single fleet, with the opening series of races followed by the medal race or medal series. All other areas of the competition format are the same.