‘Dust off the cobwebs’: Windsurfing, kiteboarding, and the politics of modernising Olympic sailing

The International Olympic Committee's (IOC) attempts to modernise the Olympic programme thought the Agenda 2020 framework, including through the inclusion of newer youth-focused action sports, is well documented. However, research on action sport inclusion has focused on the challenges for the newly incorporated sports, and their governance. The impacts for the traditional International Federations (IFs), and their shifting power and influence in these processes has been less well evidenced. To address this gap we focus on attempts to modernise Olympic Sailing via the integration of two youth-focused action sports windsurfing and kiteboarding. Our research used a multi-method, historical (1980s–2024) and ANT-informed methodology. This directed us to identify the different organisational actors involved in the modernisation of sailing; World Sailing (WS), the IOC, and the action sports organisations, their roles and experiences. Examining significant events and policy shifts from the inclusion of windsurfing in the 1980s, to the substantial changes implemented for Paris 2024, we show the different actants/stakeholders involved in each event, their challenges, and shifting influence. Our findings show that Agenda 2020 has played a critical role in the modernisation of Olympic Sailing. However, while both new sailing sports windsurfing and kiteboarding appeared to have had the IOC's support, Olympic inclusion was a contested process, particularly amongst sailing's traditional stakeholders. Our analysis highlights the economic, cultural, political and technological forces impacting the modernisation process, and contestation within and between these stakeholders. Our research reveals key shifts in the relationship between the IOC and this IF, showing that over the past decade, the IOC had increased its influence on WS's decision-making, and has exerted its authority more evidently. As WS is one of 39 IOC-recognised IFs under pressure from the IOC to modernise, our article raises wider issues about the power, politics and challenges of IF modernisation.