PWA Event news 2012
A new event in Southern Italy and a change in dates of the Alcati event
The PWA just announced two news in their 2012 tourcalendar. A new event in southern Italy could happen as the first event of the season.
“The PWA is proud to announce a new addition to the 2012 PWA World Tour. For the first time in 10 years, Italy will play host to the finest windsurfers in the world as they battle it out for PWA World Championship points at the Reggio Calabria PWA Slalom World Cup:
From the 19th to 24th April, the PWA Slalom fleet – men and women – will descend on the ancient city of Reggio Calabria on the “toe” of the Italian peninsula. With reliable warm weather and predictable thermal winds, Reggio Calabria is well known as one of Southern Italy’s premier windsurfing locations. The architecture and classical atmosphere of this cosmopolitan city, set a beautiful contrast to the hi tech, adrenaline charged action that will take place on the water.” (PWA)
Overall there are 9 Slalom events on the actual PWA tourplan. That would be a new record since 2005, when the Slalom discipline got reintroduced!!
Here is a link to a windstatistics of that area
Fast Slalom racing at Alacati bay in 2011 (Pic: PWA/John Carter).
The second news is that the dates for the Alacati event got changed: The dates for the Pegasus Airlines Slalom World Cup, at Alacati, Turkey, have now been moved. The event will now take place from the 27th August to the 1st September 2012 instead having the racing highlight earlier in August.
© PWAworldtour 2012, John Carter
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Good for the Slalom guys, but I’d much rather see more wave events instead of slalom number x y z.
Your are right….. But good news anyway.
Why the fuck there are so many slalom events? To feed all the old pros? I mean how want to see 40 year old unsportiv guys race??? Support the new guys.!!!
Learn english first
I bet those 40 year old “unsportive” guys could lift you up with their small finger.
yeah, is a good news for sure for bjorn and all old standars,but,is not for the sport in general,What about the wave? the most radical discipline of our sport.
PWA show the interest about the future of the sport and about all new genaration,,,,completly 0.
If you trying to sell windsurfing,do it well……the future of the sport is not about who is the faster,,,is so stupid.The future of the sport is the new genaration,wave ,freestyle ,i know it,you know it,my mom know it,every body know it,New gereration look for crazy things,,,where are the crazy things racing???nobody put attention.soo if you want to sell windsurfing,brands should put more presion to PWA and PWA should start doing crazythings for the sport and should put more eyes on real work,pushing the riders and tour more professional,we want to see a real wave world tour,4 events and 4 events in europe,where is the world tour here??explain me please beacuse i have been seeying the same stops for 25 years in a row,is boring!! ,this is not what new generation look for.we look for new places,world if fkng big guys.I think wave dicipline and the sport in general will grow up better if everything is more professional.anyother sport does it.
Basically I totally agree, there more wave events there better. BUT BLABLA’s argument is just wrong! Maybe the preceived attention of windsurfing is more towards wave and freestyle for those beeing on this website, but if you look at sales figures in europe, the biggest market is not wave or freestyle, it is slalom and freeride.
Regards
Thorsten
so true.
even though freestyle and wave are more spectacular, going as fast as you can is the thing most windsurfers can do in their countries. in addition, slalom is the discipline which is easiest to understand for people who actually not do windsurfing (yet). no “outsider” will ever understand what’s the difference between a puneta and a funnel for example.
Thats true but the majority of the people buying slalom and freeride gear are older males. And for windsurfing to grow there needs to be more young people, and unfortunately slalom and free ride doesn’t attract most younger people.
tell you why slalom market and freeride are the biggest sales,because there plenty of people with advant age with lot of money and like windsufing but wave sailing is to hard for them is why they choose slalom,brand’s don’t try to bring young people to the sport because young people has not enought money to buy gear, is another point,they try call all advant age people with money, also there are windsufing centers and schools that needs that kind of gear and move that market and other point is because PWA is more focused in slalom than anyother discipline, basically those are the reason.I’m wrong?
Would not totally agree on this. Have a look how many young kids compete at Techno 293 events or at IFCA Slalom championships. The numbers are not too bad. It would be cool to get more kids into all windsurfing disciplines. All disciplines fit well for younger people. Why not sailing one day at a Slalom course and the next in mast high waves..
In Alpine skiing most of the top guys are performing well in more than one discipline..
Windsurfing has never been easier then nowadays. The material has gotten lighter, the boards better you don’t even need any special knots to fix your booms
etc.
So basically the windsurfing future is now in our hands, getting more people to the sport starts at home to invite friends and neighbours etc. starting to windsurf at any age. Could be quite effective, could’nt it?
In my opinion the key for growth of windsurfing is to promote itself as the water sport that can be done by everyone every weekend at their local pond, lake or at sea. And to stop the myth of windsurfing beeing hard to learn therefore frustrating or boring. Windsurfing has proved the opposite in the 70′s and 80′s. (even my mum could do it in these days).
Parts of the windsurfing industry really try hard in this direction.
To conclude: a broad and growing basis of windsurfing people is the best for the sport the professionals and in the end for more professional (wave) events. Just to organise more wave events doesn’t really help for a real big growth of numbers of windsurfers. Attracting new people to the sport can be done by everyone everywhere (ok as soon as the lakes start to defreeze over here in Germany)
hey guys, how many times on how many forums per year is this subject discussed – the PWA is a riders association, majority vote of 4 sailors/3 industry reps who give up their time, for free to try and advise/co-ordinate and promote the tour, obviously with tour manager, marketing person etc too. But it is not the ASP funded by the mega surf industry and never will be. So be realistic – why so many slalom events – because racing is an easier discipline to co-ordinate and can be done almost anywhere. PWA events are 100% funded by the local organisers in almost all cases, not by the PWA. So if there are no local organisers in Mauritius, South Africa, Australia etc who cannot get an event together, then it will not happen (unless a larger tour sponsor comes along and is ready to sponsor some dream events).
On the other hand, instead of whining around about how crap the world tour is and all the stuff the PWA/the industry does wrong, PWA riders like Josh Angulo, Robert Sand and Dani Bruch got off their backsides and organised some very cool events in great locations of Cabo Verde, Klitmoeller and Tenerife, well done to them for putting their own interests on hold and getting three great events off the ground.
As for the rest of the guys here and on other forums who just don´t understand the PWA/basic economies – well why don´t you try to organise a PWA event in a dream location…good luck. And stop your silly whining….
Mille, part of your comments make sense, indeed everyone should work together to promote the sport and more is done behind the scenes than you think, every year more and more people learn to windsurf at centres worldwide, so obviously the sport has the potential to attract people to try it. But with so many other easier and less cost/time/skill intensive ways to get your kicks than 20-30yrs ago, windsurfing is really at a bit of a disadvantage, if we are honest with ourselves. However once you are hooked, there´s no going back..