10 Sailing Events at the London 2012 Olympics

The International Olympic committee announced on 13 August, 2009 that there will be 10 sailing events at the 2012 Olympic Games in London. This is a decrease from the 11 sailing events at the 2008 Games in Beijing, making room for new events that were not held in Beijing.

The eliminated class is the Tornado catamaran, despite the request made by the International Sailing Federation to keep it in the program. Because of this change, 380 athletes will compete in the ten sailing events to be held at the 30th Olympiad in London, which are:

Men’s One Person Dinghy – Laser

Men’s One Person Dinghy Heavy – Finn

Men’s Two Person Dinghy – 470

Men’s Two Person Dinghy High Performance – 49er

Men’s Windsurfer – RS:X

Men’s Keelboat – Star

Women’s One Person Dinghy – Laser Radial

Women’s Two Person Dinghy – 470

Women’s Keelboat Match Racing – Elliott 6m

Women’s Windsurfer – RS:X

The venue for the sailing events is the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy, located on England’s southern coast on the Isle of Portland, Dorset. Despite the loss of one event since the last Olympiad, the famously beautiful coastline of Dorset will provide a much nicer backdrop for the racing than hazy, industrial city of Qingdao, China (with its seaweed-choked waters) where the 2008 events were held.