Sopot GP report from Marta Hlavaty

This Saturday we finished the second edition of Formula Grand Prix which was in the beautiful city of Sopot, Poland. We had three days of really exciting racing. It was very surprising for this spot as almost every day we had enough wind to compete, which allowed to play eight races in total. There were 63 guys competing from 16 countries with great windsurfers like Steve Allen, Ross Williams, Gonzalo, Wojtek Brzozowski, Michal Polanowski, Pawel Hlavaty, Hubert Mokrzycki, Jesper Vesterstrom and many others.

The first day was definitely the most windy so we could have 4 very nice races in 13-17knt. For me this day was quite frustrating because I was leading two of those races but I finished second and third losing my lead in the first race just two meters before the finishing line. Nevertheless I’m happy because these were my first days on Formula this year, as I’ve been racing the RSX class a lot lately so I didn’t have enough time to set up my new MauiSails rigs totally. However, I could catch up with Allison.

Thursday and Friday we had a little less wind so the race committee decided to make two races each of those days. The great success of this event was the women’s attendance as there were ten girls on starting line. It looks like women’s Formula is getting better now. My biggest rival was Alison Shreeve racing on new Formula One Design which is a proposal as a new Olympic Class for the London Games in 2012. The other was my friend from RSX class, Ania Gałecka. All of us have been racing very close to each other so that has made the competing more exciting and interesting to spectators.

The whole event had a great interest of local media as the races were taking part very close to Sopot pier, the downwind mark was about 50m away. It was a great show for all the people watching us. Generally the organization and atmosphere were fantastic thanks to a great job by Sopot Club, City Sopot, Sponsors, Race Committee, Competitors and the Fans 🙂

Marta Hlavaty POL-111

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