Windsurfing exits the Olympic picture; is it being replaced by a sport that’s too dangerous?

The answers to the trivia questions are Dorian van Rijsselberghe and Marina Alabau Neira.

They are the winners of the last windsurfing (sailboarding) events ever held at the Olympics. At least for now. A court case is still in motion, one that would see windsurfing kept on and not replaced by kite sailing at the 2016 Olympics in Rio. Plus, down the road, you never know. A reinstatement could come.

But, for now, van Rijsselberghe and Alabau Neira are the answers to those questions, awarded gold medals this afternoon.

Higher. Faster. Stronger. More dangerous? Is windsurfing being replaced by a sport that will add some adrenaline to the viewing experience? Is kite sailing too dangerous?

Amit Inbar, a former windsurfing Olympian, tells Reuters he believes the Olympic establishment is just asking for trouble.

Inbar claims more than 130 people have been killed, worldwide, in the sport. A Kansas man died just this past weekend after an accident saw him slammed into the water, where he lost consciousness.

You may have seen the oddity that is kite sailing, from time to time. Certainly you're familiar with windsurfing, a sport that seemed incredibly weird to me as a child but has obviously, over the years, become much more usual. To the point that we don't really do a double take when we see a windsurfer on the bay. To the point where it gained Olympic acceptance, added to the games in 1984 (men) and 1992 (women).

It has now sailboarded off into the sunset in London, to be replaced by what is, for the moment, a more unusual, faster and likely more dangerous sport.

It's a sport that does still look odd, when you catch a glimpse of these big kites going up over the water, and then a moment later, you see a lone sailor on the board below, quickly gaining wicked velocity and zipping past you along the horizon in spectacular fashion. They're super fast, with pros taking them to 50 knots (about 90 kilometres per hour).

The speed, the equipment and the drive to win an Olympic medal may very well be a dangerous concoction, according to Inbar.

Well, you're not likely to see a mass of 100 kite sailors taking part in an Olympic race. But I get his point. You might well want to compare kite sailing to snowboard-cross or ski-cross at the winter Olympics. Those two disciplines can be exciting enough when an individual shoots down the hill as fast as they can. Add three other competitors to the course at the same time and you increase the possibility of it getting physical, with collisions and crashes adding to the drama of the velocity.

Send a few kite sailors out on course at the same time, with the possibility of tangled wires leading to racing heartbreak as well as bumps, bruises and broken bones and you have a crowd pleaser. Like it or not, people are entranced by other humans placing themselves in danger. Olympic organizers might want to consider a competition where kite sailors take to the course individually, but how do you then account for differences in wind velocity between competitor one and competitor 40?

Olympic sailing events have often been criticized for their lack of excitement to the observer. Sailboarding brought the action a little closer, with the sight lines at the London Games reportedly terrific. So fans have gotten a good look at the last competitors to take part in the Olympics.

Or have they?

Last May, The International Sailing federation decided that kite sailing would replace sailboarding at the Olympics, beginning in 2016.

As you would expect, sailboarders were unimpressed. They've launched a legal challenge against the decision and it's before a London court. The battle for Rio is on.

So, for now, the answers to the trivia question are set. With Dorian van Rijsselberghe and Marina Alabau Neira's sport set to be replaced with something more entertaining, more crowd pleasing. And possibly more lethal.