As if it knew it was time to stop, the wind dropped for the closing day of the 2012 Cold Hawaii PWA World Cup in Klitmøller on Sunday, after a week of tough competition between the best 43 wave windsurfers in the world. After three successful years of competition, Klitmøller, for decades a place of pilgrimage for the windsurfers in the know, is now firmly on the professionals trail.
“It’s an established part of the tour now,” Rich Page, the PWA tour manager, said. “Klitmøller was an event that that had been years in the development phases working with Rasmus Johnsen (head of new media and technology at the Active Institute at the University of Aarhus) and then later with Robert (Sand, the event manager). So that when it came to fruition it was very well organised.
The ‘T’s had been crossed and the ‘I’s dotted and that gave it a solid foundation. It was never going to be a flash in the pan. That hard work has paid off and we expect it to continue to grow.”
And grow it has, driving a digital revolution in the sport. In their inaugural year in 2010, the organisers of Cold Hawaii brought live streaming video technology to the windsurfing World Cup for the first time and this year the introduction of live scoring by the PWA has helped revolutionise the sport.