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Organisation/Reports to ISAF/2006 2006 Annual Report
to ISAF Windsurfing Committee
The second year of ISA Speed windsurfing, which IFCA organised in close co-operation with the ISA (International Speedsurfing Association), confirmed that the re-introduction of speed windsurfing as a stand alone discipline is here to stay. No new world records have been broken (so far) this year, but Fuerteventura, Karpathos and Namibia had a lot of competitors and exiting racing.
2006 was also the second year in a row where IFCA co-operated with PWA by allowing PWA to use the result of the IFCA Slalom World Championship as a tour-stop for the PWA Slalom 42 Tour.
In 2006 IFCA organized the following Championships.
Freestyle
The European Freestyle Pro Tour was for the third year in a row recognized as the Freestyle European Championships. It was a very successful tour again with 9 from the 11 events and 106 competitors from 23 countries. Andre Paskowski (GER) is leading the ranking at this moment.
There was no stand alone World Championship in 2006.
EFPT desires to stop the co-operation with IFCA from 2007 onwards and carry on alone. Quote: "After we realised that IFCA is not really interested in a constructive co-operation with EFPT we decided to terminate our contract with IFCA. We think that the development in freestyle can grow much faster under the lead of a small group instead of being a member of a bureaucratic system." Unquote.
IFCA is not happy since this move from EFPT will once again weaken the windsurf sport and make the overall picture unclear for participants, media and spectators.
Slalom
In analogy with the freestyle discipline IFCA recognized in 2006 for the first time the Euro Cup Slalom races organized by Choppy Water as the European Championships. The Euro Cup ranking has 152 competitors and crowned after 3 events Antoine Albeau (FRA) as European Champion Slalom.
The Slalom Worlds were held in Alacati (Turkey) with again more competitors than last year: 74 Men from 4 continents and 20 countries battled in 5 rounds of slalom to see Finian Maynard (VI) taking the World Title in front of Antoine Albeau (FRA) and Kevin Pritchard (USA).
In the women's fleet we had Verena Fauster (ITA) winning her first World Title. The Master Title was won by Massimo Masserini (ITA) and the Youth title by Pascal Somers (BEL).
In 2006 IFCA also introduced the Slalom World Ranking which includes all Major slalom events worldwide. By the end of this year it will rank over 15 events and almost 400 slalom racers worldwide. Leading the ranking are Antoine Albeau (FRA 192), Finian Maynard (KV 11), Ross Williams (GBR 83), Steve Allen (AUS 0) and Cyril Moussilmani (FRA 71).
Speed
The Overall World Title Speed 2006 will be decided during the Namibia event which is running while I am writing this report. The 2005 title went to Bjorn Dunckerbeck (AND) who beat Finian Maynard (BVI) and Antoine Albeau (FRA). There were 109 competitors from 24 nations and 5 continents taking part on the re-start of speed tour.
For 2007 ISA hope to be approved by ISAF as an International Class, a submission which is before this year's meeting, and which has the full support of IFCA.
2007
IFCA have the following championships planned:
- Freestyle:
- Wave Performance:
- Slalom
Speed
Bruno De Wannemaeker
President IFCA
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