At their meeting in St Petersburg, Council members voted on the 10 events that will form the sailing competition in Rio, and they will include a two-person mixed multihull event.

Looking ahead to the vote, Nahid Gaebler, the first female Tornado class multihull world champion, told Sail-World.com that a decision to include mixed racing would "allow girls and boys to realise an Olympic dream," adding that 20 per cent of the top 10 Tornado multihull teams were now mixed.

She said mixed sailing could be "the Formula 1 of the summer Olympics and get the youth, spectators, media and sponsors that Olympic sailing needs."

She added: "No one can tell me it's too hard for a woman to crew in a Tornado.

"Women love to sail a real F1 boat like the Tornado for the Olympics.

"Why should the women, who sail on top level have a handicap, just because some think in the old fashioned way of women?"

She also cited the occasion of the 1984 Olympics, where veteran sailor Paul Elvstrom competed in a mixed boat with his daughter.

The Council also announced the introduction of a women's skiff event.

The two events which will lose their Olympic status to make way are the men's and women's keelboat classes – respectively the Star class, included in men's Olympic sailing since Los Angeles in 1932, and the Elliot 6m women's match racing.

Britain's Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson (pictured) won the Star event at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.


The three-person Elliott 6m boats were selected to replace the Yngling for London 2012 but will now feature in only one Olympics.

Britain's Yngling crew of Sarah Ayton, Sarah Webb and Pippa Wilson, dubbed the "three blondes in a boat", took gold in the 2008 Olympics sailing event at Qingdao.

The boat in which the mixed event will take place will be named following trials that will take place until November 2012.

These trials will also be used to evaluate a decision over replacing men's and women's windsurfing events with kitesurfing.

The Royal Yachting Association has said it is "fully supportive" of the changes, which, according to a statement from its racing manager and performance director John Derbyshire "show progression within the sport and a clear pathway now, particularly for girls transitioning from the youth classes into Olympic campaigning."

But Derbyshire added: "It's disappointing in some ways to be losing an old friend with the removal of the Star class...and that women's match racing hasn't proved as successful as it was hoped it might.

"The mood of the meeting showed, though, that the retention of the keelboat events is not the right thing for the future growth and appeal of the sport in Olympic terms right now, and that the events chosen reflect more the mass participation of young sailors within sailing, and the RYA supports these views."

The full list of sailing events at Rio 2016 will be: men's board or kiteboard (evaluation), women's board or biteboard (evaluation), men's one person dinghy (Laser), women's one person dinghy (Laser Radial), men's second one-person dinghy (Finn), men's skiff (49er), women's skiff (evaluation), men's two person dinghy (470), women's two person dinghy (470), mixed two person multihull (evaluation).

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