Sailing was first contested at the 1900 Olympics. It made its next Olympic appearance in 1908 and has been on every Olympic programme since that year. Sailing has had a varied programme that is usually changed every few Olympiads as the popularity of various boats waxes and wanes. The trend has been towards smaller and smaller boats, with fewer crew members. In some of the early Olympics, crews had as many a 10-12 sailors. During the 2000 Sydney Games, only one event had a three-person crew (Soling), with six events contested by lone sailors.

Women have always been allowed to compete in Olympic sailing with men, but in 1984, separate sailing events were introduced exclusively for women. The Olympic sailing programme in 2000 consisted of men's, women's and mixed events.

In effect, sailing made its Olympic debut in Sydney, as it became the first Olympic sport to make a name change. The sport had always been called yachting in the past.