The assertion is that the US Delegation would have voted the exact contents of the submittal (which included two multihulls and two keelboats) if the final slate had the same events. Most in the multihull community knew at the outset that it was unlikely in the extreme that this approach of a men's and women's event would fly. I cannot say with certainty that this was a "poison pill" emplaced to assure failure and to "shut us up." I can say for sure that it was not a good idea - could we not have anticipated that even the Women's Sailing Committee would not support a women's multihull event? I have made the case up-chain (with unrelated examples) that decisions are being made about the future of multihulls without input from people familiar with the multihull community.
Since the slate before the Council did not mirror the submittal, and the Committee's recommendation was voted out, there was a previously-formulated playbook that was used by our Delegation. The plays in that book were built on the predicted chances for medals in each event. The folks that built that playbook ranked cats below keelboats. In their book, there were five of the seven events that were assured acceptance no matter how the US voted - look at the results and you see five events with tallies in the mid-30s. That left two events vulnerable (they tallied low-20s). One had to win and one had to lose - one outcome was favored over the other by the US. The operatives went to work. This is how it works for any country - the US did not invent political maneuvering.
I believe that the US Delegates would have voted the exact events on the submittal if the slate had mirrored it - they could do no other. I also believe the US submittal had a snowball's chance of becoming the slate of events. Once keelboats were on the chopping block (thanks to a forward-thinking Events Committee), all the work we'd done went in the trash can.
