The American Windsurfing Tour reported: "On day five of the 2012 Quatro Desert Showdown the best swell showed up for the week long event, and head judge Matt Pritchard made the call to send out the pros. Despite the light wind conditions they put on a spectacular show picking off logo high set waves at the Punta San Carlos point and riding the 6-to-12 bottom-turn waves through the Chili Bowl and beyond...It was a great week hosted by SoloSports Adventure Holidays in Punta San Carlos, Baja, Mexico. Thanks to everyone—hosts, sponsors, competitors, staff, and organizer Sam Bittner—for making this event almost twice as big as it was last year. Looking forward to seeing everyone down in Baja again next year!"
Kevin Pritchard's brilliant video report:
Team Quatro in Baja:
All 7 Pro Heats can be viewed on the player below. At the end of the first heat you can select any of the remaining 6 heats to watch.
Solo Sports, the Desert Showdown event site, is remote which is part of its charm. Being remote also means limited internet access time because they have to uplink via satellite which is quite expensive. While the AWT did manage to keep us informed, there was a flood of reports after the participants made it back to easy internet access on the other side of the border.
Photos: Quatro Desert Showdown #1 ~ Quatro Desert Showdown #2 ~ Quatro Desert Showdown #3 ~ San Carlos Cactus Cup Photo Album (Dont' be fooled by last year's title) ~ Road to Punta San Carlos, Mexico
- AWT Day 1 & 2
- Chris Freeman Part Uno
- AWT Day 3
- Chris Freeman Part Dos
- AWT Day 4
- AWT Day 5 & 6
- Chris Freeman Finale
The busy AWT now prepares for their next event in Pacasmayo, Peru, set to run from August 17 - 26. Watch the video for an introduction to this famous wave venue:
RS:X Gold Medalist Dorian Rijsselberge celebrated with a loud and enthusiastic Dutch crowd of 6,000 in the Holland Heineken House at Alexandra Palace in London as he crowd surfed to the bar.
The 2012 London Games were a very successful demonstration of the RS:X Class in action. As the sun begins to set for this Olympiad, the kerfuffle, aka the Appeal to Return Olympic Windsufing, is getting ready to turn into an old fashioned street fight. Both sides have lawyered up and await their day in court. In conjunction with their recent Press Release, where the RS:X Class claimed the need for Judicial Review, they now have enumerated in detail support for the claim. A Briefing Document details their 16 points of why the RS:X class should be selected for the 2016 Rio Games. This document makes the claim of world wide support by citing the Petition to keep windsurfing as an Olympic discipline. Help the cause by signing the Petition which is now just a few hundred votes short of 30,000.
Boards Magazine reported: "At the Olympics, just before the medal racers took to the water, Neil Pryde sat down with the media to talk about RS:X and the future of windsurf racing." He talked about the need to improve and evolve the RS:X Class equipment. Pryde said: "I’ve made it clear to ISAF that we’re going to continue supporting it. We have a huge financial commitment, we’ve supplied all of this equipment here at the Games totally free of charge, we have half a million euro tied up in equipment at the Olympics. Plus we have another half a million euro for all the equipment we supply at the youth worlds, which was just recently completed in Dublin...I believe in the future of windsurfing so we’ve promised ISAF that at least for the next two years we will go on supplying the equipment for the youth worlds because we believe in them." He also talked about the new RS One feeder class, kitesurfing, the decision that removed windsurfing from the Olympics and the recent legal action by the Class.
The sailing press is back on the story. A recent Sail World article by leading international sailing journalist Bob Fisher questioned the ISAF Council decision "to replace Windsurfing for Men and Women with Kiteboarding for both
genders, by a single vote majority. The back-tracking has been amusing, or would have been if it had not been such a
blatant tissue of untruths. Who on earth would believe that a Councillor of ISAF
could be confused about the voting to the extent that he gave his vote to the
Kiteboards when he really wanted to vote for the retention of the Windsurfers?
These are meant to be the custodians of our sport, but their record would
disqualify them from running a charity shop."
The Olympic story that's sure to open hearts is Zofia Klepacka's announcement to auction her just won Bronze Medal in the RS:X Class to raise money for a 5-year-old girl with cystic fibrosis. Her young neighbor,"Zuzia requires constant care, and that care has proven to be a financial challenge to her family." Klepacka vowed that if she won a medal, she would auction it to help raise funds for little Zuzia's support. Her disease is terminal.
Matt Pritchard, after completing 2 of the 3 planned for this year Baja wave clinics and spending many hours in the judging tower on the AWT, had something to share. Here's part of a recent wave sailing tips post from his blog : "What did we learn? Wave Selection - Just because you are coming in doesn’t mean you should! LOOK at what is behind you and pay attention to set waves. Watch and follow the good guys that are catching waves.
Rig Separation - keep the sail further away from you so that it can pull you through the turns. When you choke the sail and have your arms bent you lose the input from the sail driving the board.
Hand Movement is a big Key- Backhand back in the bottom turn, slide it forward coming off the top as you twist your body and redirect your path.
Body follows head - when coming off the top, look back to the beach to where you want to go so that your body twists in the hips while you weight your heels and pull down on the booms to keep mast foot pressure and your speed going.Boardseeker and Boards provide a steady stream of how to help. Some of the instruction they have published in the last few months: The 3 part series: The Right Stuff For Radical Action by Robby Swift takes the reader from the basic jump all the way through every rotating maneuver you see the pros doing: Part 1 ~ Part 2 ~ Part 3. Jem Hall helps with the Carve Jibe. John Skye wants to help you make it out to the waves. James Cox, Chris Murray and John Skye want to help you with the forward loop. Ant Baker shows how a heli-tack is done. Phil Richards shows how to do the body drag, vulcan and spock. Danielle Lucas walks us through the Duck Jibe.
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