On Sunday, October 30, 2016 at 6:40:30 PM UTC-4, Sean wrote:
What did you all think about the recent Soaring International article (Nov, 2016 issue) on the value of re-starting the sport of glider racing in the Olympics. I for one think this would be very, very smart with minimal downside.

Sean

Pointless. Having your sport in the Olympics is just about ego. How many new sailors does the Olympics produce? Probably not many and sailing gets a boost because sailing can get Jr into a better college than his academics warrant. And sailing is something normal people and likely someone you know has done. Gliding is a freak sport done by eccentric freaks in funny hats. Doubt any of the freak sports that are included get a boost from the Olympics.
Best way to increase gliding participation would be to hire product researchers with a reliable personality scale(not the ones on social media) give it to multi decade soaring obsessed and see what populations share their proclivities. Plenty of people that would love soaring but they aren't airplane pilot types, don't know that they would love soaring and thus only a handful find soaring by luck.