Westende (Belgium), 25.08.02
After five days the combined IFCA World Championships & Windsurfing Euro-CupWestende (Belgium) has finished. The regatta hasn’t been too lucky with the wind. Only on the opening day it was possible to run four races in the discipline FormulaWindsurfing. The conditions never allowed to run the second discipline Wave-Freestyle.
The first race was won by Wojtek Brzozowski from Poland who was on the position two in the annual ranking of the Windsurfing Euro-Cup only five points behind Steve Allen from Australia before the event in Westende. Wojtek had 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.
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After four races with one discard Steve Allen has won 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 and 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.
With this triumph Steve is also saving himself the victory in the Windsurfing Euro-Cup 2002 with 835 points in the annual ranking list. He has lead the continental series right from the starting event in Malcesine/Lake Garda (Italy). But during the season his biggest opponent Wojtek Brzozowski came closer and closer due to victories at the two events in Germany (Travemünde and Sylt) and the two Polish events in Miedzyzdroje and Jurata. In the end Wojtek was only six points behind with a total of 829 points. The third place is won by Brian Roegild from Denmark. He showed consistent strong results all over the season which resulted in 804 points in the EC annual ranking list. On his heals he has Gonzalo Costa Hoevel from Argentina (794 points) and only one point behind Arnon Dagan from Israel (793 points).
photos: Matthias
