Marta Hlavaty from Poland has won the this years Formula Worlds title in Portimao/Portugal. She could beat Allison Shreeve in a super exciting final on the second last competition day. Marta send us her lines on following questions about her big success.C7: Winning a Worldchampiontitle in the Formula windsurfing discipline...what does it mean to you?
MH: A great success, the biggest ever for me. A reward for the whole year of hard training which I did together with my brother Pawel and all Polish team. Also I treat this winning as some breaking point in my career as now I know I can win! After such a accomplishment you feel like winning everything now:) It also opens some doors for sponsorship and - what is the most important - motivates to fight and win more and more:)
C7: Did you expect to win the event?
MH: I came to Portugal with the plan to win:)like everybody. That was my dream! But I know Allison as very good, strong and stubborn competitor. I was sure it will be a hard fight and as I know that everything can happen in the sport I just decided to do my job. Because I've never won against Allison the biggest thing for me was my mind war:)to change my head for winning. And I managed it this time. However, I knew I'm very well prepared.
C7: How did you prepare for the Worlds?
MH: I trained a lot in Poland with my brother Pawel, who helped me a lot, and I'm very grateful for that.Physically I was prepared from RSX Olympic Class. I finished the last training camp with RSX team in July. So my shape was perfect and also the preparation in tactics. Then it was more about gear tuning which I did with Pawel mostly in Poland. As he is a very good sailor and experienced competitor, he knows a lot about Formula gear. Quite quickly we set up my speed. Also I did a few Polish competitons before the Worlds, where I could train my starting skills on FW. The 2008 season was just great.
C7: How strong were the opponents in Portimao at the Formula worlds?
MH: That was the strongest female fleet that I remember from the last 3 years. We had all the biggest names like Allison Shreeve, Olga Maslivets (she was the Ukrainian representant on Olympic Games), Verena Fauster, Sarah Hebert, Maria Andres, Aga Pietrasikand and some more. Most of these girls I know for a long time as great sailors. Against most of them I didn't win in earlier year. The closest fight I had with Allison. For 4 days of competition we were with equal points. So it was for both of us very stresful and very interesting rivalry. Also Olga (UKR9) was sailing excellent.
C7: Which gear did you use?
MH: Maui Sails TR4 in 11.0, 10.0, 8.4 m, a Starboard 160 and Deboichet fins.
C7: What´s the next title you will grab?
MH: In 2009 I will defend my European and World title in Formula Windsurfing. My dream is to add a PWA Slalom World title one day. It will be hard, but I’ll train hard and try:)
C7: Where do you see yourself in the future and how big is the chance to get Formulawindsurfing One Design (FOD) as the new Olympic class for 2012?
MH: Unfortunately I think FOD has a small chance to get to London 2012 as it’s a too short time period to convince people, who like dagger-boards, which makes planing better, hehe;) However, I like FOD much more than RSX and I would be very happy if it happens.
Now I'll focus to train wave and slalom in the winter. For sure I will sacrifice to FW and Slalom racing fully next year. But also I'll try to get to Olympic Games 2012 in London whatever the gear will be. But I'll focus on Olympic training more after 2010 what I think is enough.