There is 365 days in a normal year and 366 every four years. On average there is 52 weekends every year.

There is around 35-40 MAJOR international windsurfing events planned for 2014 worldwide. Out of them around 25 are racing events. Slalom, Formula Windsurfing and Long Distance are the disciplines I’m counting in (Speed has 1 major international event so it doesn’t seem relevant to the subject). 11 of them are PWA sanctioned events, 2 IFCA, 2 Formula Windsurfing Class, 4-5 Euro Cup and around another 5 unsanctioned, independently organized events (Lancelin OC, Defi Wind, St Barth Cup etc).

So does somebody want to tell me why year after year after year organizers of major events can’t work out a calendar without those major events overlapping? Can somebody tell me why since I started competing 10 years ago there is never communication between the major organizations like the PWA, IFCA, Formula Windsurfing Class etc? Every time I ask “why” fingers are being pointed at “the other guys” and in the end it’s never anybody’s fault.

So instead of asking “why” this year I prepared this PTA calendar and am writing this, blindly believing somebody will listen:

For fucks sake, pro windsurfing is way to small to get fragmentized or divided like that. There is no room for war between organizations and the only way we can make this sport grow is by working all together – united, as cliché as it might sound. After all because of overlapping schedules everybody looses:

a) the non-PWA events, because they can’t have the biggest names of our sport even if they pay milions for them to come – probably 90% of industry-sponsored competitors have a “PWA-must” clausure in their contracts.

b) the PWA events, because lack of healthy secondary tour makes the wildcard decision-making process much harder and because pro windsurfers should be/are the PWA so here comes the following

c) professional windsurfers I believe are the most harmed in this situation. We are not given the possibility to compete in more events, win more trophies, earn more money, get more media coverage etc etc. Our sponsorship value is going down because we can’t come to events like Le Defi, where a 1000 windsurfers compete – a market not to be overlooked I believe.. Not to mention younger guys like myself who are maybe looking for a breakthrough in one of those non-PWA events, but who cares if you won if all the good guys were in Korea at that time?? What about dual-discipline guys who do both FWC and Slalom (the likes of Antoine Albeau, Steve Allen, Gonzalo Costa Hoevel, Ross Williams, Arnon Dagan, Casper Bouman, Matteo Iachino, Alberto Menegatti, Sean O'Brien, myself and many others) and often spend weeks and weeks developing new gear, risking lives downhauling those 12,5m sails, buying and testing fins, booms etc just to try to win that one important event of the year – guess what? All our work was for nothing because it’s overlapped with another event!

d) the industry – because if an event like the Formula Windsurfing Worlds has no big names in it, the class will slowly disappear. No discipline=no sales – or am I getting ahead of myself?

e) the media – coz how on earth are you gonna cover 2 or 3 (like in may last year with IFCA Worlds, PWA Korea and Defi Wind) events WELL at the same time?

A lot of those dates are still To Be Confirmed (TBC), so I’m, yet again, blindly hoping that there is still something that can be done. But is it really not worth to bounce a few emails around between those organizations and at least try and look for a possible solution? Is it not worth to have the World Championship title which IFCA has the rights to give, to actually have some importance in the windsurfing world? Is it not worth to have at least a tiny bit more organized, healthier, more professional, more profitable sport?

We, as a sport, are laying on the ground and barely moving. So why the hell the only energy we have left we put into grabbing the gun that is almost out of our reach and shooting ourselves in the freaking foot??

I thought we all love the sport and want to see it flourish. For sure, solely the fact of having no overlapping events will not make it happen, definitely not straight away. But at least it would be a sign of unity, that we are so desperately missing. You gotta start somewhere, right?

Une vision sur ces problemes de date

Et oh, quand on est dans la "dream team" on parle anglais!!! Alors on attends ton résumé christine...

J'ai réussi enfin à ouvrir la fameuse page, et il y a de tout sur cette page!! et pas que du "dream"!
Mon anglais est plutôt basique et je ne suis pas sûre d'avoir tout compris.

Merci captain pour ce résumé.
En gros, ils n'arrivent jamais à se mettre d'accord, quoi.

Ils ne se parlent pas ou les non PWA essayent de communiquer avec la PWA et la PWA fait la morte ?

Si le mec que cite Yann peut etre cru (il defend son point de vue, donc mefiance), ca veut dire que la PWA est la derniere a decider, est informees des autres dates en avance (6 mois), mais semble en faire fi.... A voir ce qu'il entend par son "et cela parce qu'ils ne regardent que l'interet economique".

Si le mec que cite Yann peut etre cru (il defend son point de vue, donc mefiance), ca veut dire que la PWA est la derniere a decider, est informees des autres dates en avance (6 mois), mais semble en faire fi.... A voir ce qu'il entend par son "et cela parce qu'ils ne regardent que l'interet economique".

C'est pourtant simple, celà veut dire que la PWA suit surtout l'avis de ses sponsors pour les dates de compétition. Putain, en fait, il leur suffirait de dire merde à tous leurs sponsors pour que tous les pros puissent aller se faire tordre par les amateurs sur le défi wind s'ils en ont le courage.

Moi, c'est pareil, il me suffirait de dire merde à mon patron pour pouvoir aller naviguer tous les jours ventés, je ne regarde que l'intérêt économique aussi.