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Displaying items by tag: Peter Sowrey

The former CEO of World Sailing says he was fired for pushing to get rid of polluted Guanabara Bay as the sailing venue of the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, according to an Associated Press report this morning.

Peter Sowrey tried to change the venue, or at least have a "B plan" but says "I was told to gag myself on the subject."

Sowrey proposed moving the event to Buzios, a coastal resort about 160 kilometres (100 miles) from Rio that has been host to large sailing events. Of course, it's too late now for that change.

"The board felt I was way too aggressive," Sowrey said. "They basically voted me out. I didn't resign. The board finally told me to leave."

Sowrey said looking at Guanabara Bay on "fact-based, data-driven models we would never consider sailing in that quality of water."

The Associated Press has much more on the story here

Published in World Sailing

William M Nixon has been writing about sailing in Ireland and internationally for many years, with his work appearing in leading sailing publications on both sides of the Atlantic. He has been a regular sailing columnist for four decades with national newspapers in Dublin, and has had several sailing books published in Ireland, the UK, and the US. An active sailor, he has owned a number of boats ranging from a Mirror dinghy to a Contessa 35 cruiser-racer, and has been directly involved in building and campaigning two offshore racers. His cruising experience ranges from Iceland to Spain as well as the Caribbean and the Mediterranean, and he has raced three times in both the Fastnet and Round Ireland Races, in addition to sailing on two round Ireland records. A member for ten years of the Council of the Irish Yachting Association (now the Irish Sailing Association), he has been writing for, and at times editing, Ireland's national sailing magazine since its earliest version more than forty years ago