Westende (Belgium), 21.08.02: A perfect kick off for the FormulaWindsurfing racers in Westende! Perfecly matching the start of the regatta the northern wind appeared with nice 15 to 20 knots which enabled the race director Bruno de Wannemaker to run four perfect races in the discipline FormulaWindsurfing although the wind gradually slowed down in the course of the afternoon.

The first race was won by Wojtek Brzozowski from Poland. At the moment he is on the position two in the annual ranking of the Windsurfing Euro-Cup only five points behind Steve Allen from Australia. Wojtek has to finish five places ahead of Steve to win the Euro-Cup 2002 and to defend his title from 2001. With the victory in the first race he made the first step in this direction. But he had Steve Allen directly on his heals on place two. Brian Roegild from Denmark managed to finish third.

The second race was won by Ben van der Steen from The Netherlands. With this victory he proved to be fully recovered from his accident at the Europeans in Lisbon where he had a serious collision with a flying fish that hit his foot. Steve Allen showed consistency with another second place in front of Arnon Dagan from Israel.

In the third race Steve had bad luck. The race committee saw him crossing the line too early which resulted in a disqualification. So Wojtek didn’t only win this race and took the lead in the event ranking. He also managed to win the lead in the annual ranking of the Windsurfing Euro-Cup at least for the moment as there was no discard at the moment and Steve dropped down the ranking list very far. Brian Roegild presented himself again in perfect shape and finished as second with Arnon Dagan on his heals who kept the pressure for the top.

Thank god for Steve Allen the wind stayed strong enough for a fourth race. In dieing winds he managed to win the final race and put himself again on the top of the event ranking list. Gonzalo Costa Hoevel, the light wind expert from Argentina got second in front of Jarek Miarczynski.

After four races with one discard Steve Allen is leading the ranking list of the combined IFCA World Championships & Windsurfing Euro-Cup in Westende (Belgium) with 4.7 points. On his heals is his biggest opponent for the Euro-Cup title Wojtek Brzozowski from Poland with 7.4 points. On the third an fourth position we can see a fight between Brian Roegild from Denmark and Arnon Dagan from Israel. Both have 11.0 points. But according to the Funboard Racing Rules the tie is broken in favour of Brian giving him the third place.

For Thursday the forecast is again predicting wind between 3 and four Bft. so that we can expect some more great races in front of the Belgium coast. The event continues until Sunday 25th of August.

Women fleet

Having driven a long way from sunny Silvaplanna we arrived to a wet and windy morning in Westende, Belgium. With both formula and freestyle both competing the racers were thinking they were going to stay dry for the day since it was blowing a good wind.

The weather man predicted the wind to be lighter for the rest of the week so they decided to race all day to get 4 races in to give us a discard.

With the schedule of races very tight – one every hour from 2pm, the girls started promptly after some worried looks on the beach concerning the shore break. Most of the girls were on 9.3sqm sails to 8.3sqm and small fins to cope with the waves. The first race was quite long but it was Lucy Horwood who came thorough winning the race in front of Cinay Hoopman and Christine Johnston. Having just come 2nd to Christine in Silvaplanna Lucy showed the wind and waves were more her conditions winning the 2nd and 3rd race with Cindy and Christine batteling it for 2nd and 3rd place.

The wind was dropping all afternoon and most of the men were rigging 12.5 for the last race but the girls stayed on 9.8 and Cindy Hoopman had a great start and first beat and came out on top at the finish with Christine and Lucy following hot on her heels. It finished the day with Lucy Horwood 1st, Cindy Hoopman 2nd, Christine Johnston 3rd.

Everybody is looking forward to another hard days racing tomorrow, lets hope the weather man was wrong!