Former Olympian and millionaire businessman Neil Pryde has warned sailing is in danger of being kicked out of the Olympics as the fallout continues from the controversial decision to dump windsurfing in favour of kiteboarding for the 2016 Games.
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First let me thank everyone who has been reading the posts and the twitter followers. I’ve been having fun posting all the great videos from all the awesome sailors around the world, and even managing to squeeze in a few sessions for myself on the Canadian Prairies. So chances are if I haven’t made a post for the day, I’m probably out windsurfing, and I hope if you aren’t reading this you’re out windsurfing to!
We should be rolling out the layout, including our long awaited logo by the end of the month. You can expect many exciting features. The features we are most excited about are a directory for the whole windsurfing industry, the largest windsurfing glossary, and free classifieds. Another feature specifically targeted tot eh readers is the community which will allow you to share videos, pictures and updates easily with windsurfers around the world.
Lawrence ‘Wind Dude’ Stewart
Look up windsurfing on wikipedia.com and you’ll find Kevin Pritchard listed under ‘International Stars’ and that’s because Kevin is, without doubt, one of the best all-round sailors in windsurfing having won a countless amount of champion titles since he turned professional at 18. One of the highlights of his career has to be in 2000 when he won his first PWA World Wave championship and at the same time defeated Bjorn Dunkerbeck who was 11 times world champion.
Reading through Kevin’s interview you get a small insight into who he is and also his quirky sense of humour but above all else it’s awesome to see yet another windsurfer express satisfaction in how they’ve lived their life thus far as well as the importance of family and their support.
The 2012 PWA Korea Slalom event is over. The wins go to Micah Buzianis and Valerie Arrigheti.
The 2012 PWA Ulsan World Cup Overall Standings : Men’s Slalom
1st Micah Buzianis (JP / MauiSails)
2nd Antoine Questel (Starboard / Loft Sails)
3rd Ross Williams (Tabou / Gaastra)
The 2012 PWA Ulsan World Cup Overall Standings : Women’s Slalom
1st Valerie Arrighetti (Tabou / Gaastra / Mystic)
2nd Karin Jaggi (Patrik / Severne)
3rd Delphine Cousin (JP / NeilPryde)
You can check out the full results on the PWA Website.
With much speculation over how and why such a unexpected decision to remove windsurfing as an Olympic sport has been made, Boards set about finding out the details from someone directly involved in process.
Head over to Boards for the full Interview.
The Santa Cruz Goya Windsurfing Festival is in the books and will be remembered for years to come as an epic contest. We had amazing wind and waves over two days of competition. What a great way to kick off the 2012 AWT tour. Davenport Surf and Sail hosted an incredible closing party where all the winners and $5,000 prize money was awarded. Thanks to everyone who helped out and supported this great event. See you all at Pistol River next month.
Head over to the AWT website for full results.
Enjoy the videos from the event!
Video: AWT 2012 – Santa Cruz – Day One
Video: AWT 2012 – Santa Cruz – Day Two
Please head over and sign the petition to help reverse ISAFs idiotic decision to replace windsurfing with kiteboarding in the 2016 Olympics.
The following is from the American Windsurfing Tour website:
A weak storm front rolls through the Santa Cruz area killing the wind for day 1 of the AWT’s Goya Windsurfing Festival… but don’t fear, the forecast looks great for the rest of the weekend. Skippers meeting will be at 9 am Friday so everyone will be ready for a big day at Waddell
Don`t forget to follow the AWT for more updates, pics and videos!
The Red Bull Storm Chase is back. This time it’s Global, with 3 gnarly storms, and 10 riders competing in the most insane windsurfing event ever! Registration for the 2012 Red Bull Storm Chase is open! Voting for the 10 favourite riders is from July 2nd and July 16th. From August 1st until November 30th the event is on!!
Boards MPORA will be at the PWA Podersdorf and have just confirmed a one hour LiveChat with Andre Paskowski. Its set for Monday 30th April @ 17.00 GMT, so head over to Boards and check it out!!!
Check out Max Rowe’s new feature on Boardseeker Mag. In this issue Max guiedes you through Bonaire, and with the help of Klass Voget and Mikey Clancy, Pozo.
TThe first PWA event of the season just wrapped up. Bjorn Dunkerbech edged out Gonzalo Costa Hoevel and Antoine Albeau for the win in mens slalom. Karin Jaggi took first for the women. Head over to the PWAWorldTour.com for full event results, pictures and video.
More disappointing news from the PWA, coming just a few weeks after announcing the cancellation of the Aruba Slalom event, the PWA has now cancelled the entire event. The following is the statement from the PWA, citing the financial situation for cancellations.
“The present economic situation, brought about by the closing of the Valero Refinery, has greatly affected Aruba. As a consequence sponsors for the event recently informed us that they are forced to cut down funding support for events and projects on the Island because of the present insecure financial situation. Government budgets have been cut drastically and as such the needed budget for the PWA event cannot be supplemented from that source either.”
Hopefully this trend does not continue, and events return in the following years.
Fiona Wylde is a fifteen year old totally hooked on windsurfing! She lives in Hood River Oregon and Los Barriles Mexico, and loves wave and formula. Check out the full article on the AWT website.
Fish Bowl Diaries latest interview is with Marcilio ‘Brawzinho’ Browne. A good read and some awesome action shots of Brawzhino. Head over to Fish Bowl Diaries for the full story.
