Earlier in the day PWA press officer Chris Yates were able to catch up with Josh Angulo,, who has unfortunately had to withdraw from the remainder of the competition due to the foot injury he sustained yesterday. Read the interview with Josh Angulo:
PWA: Hey Josh, what happened in your heat yesterday?
Josh Angulo: Basically, as almost everybody knows by now the wind has been very light, shifty and gusty… I believe this was the 4th time starting heat 2 (it finally ran the 5th time). I got to the first buoy in 3rd or 4th I think… Because it was so light we were all doing pretty slow motion jibes and just hugging the mark. I got so close that the nose of my board hit the buoy and unfortunately swung to the upwind side of the mark. I tried to kinda “snap jibe” it back the other way over the buoy, but to no avail at which point I jumped back in the water… In trying to get around this “big fat buoy in 5 kts of wind :)”. I kicked the front of my board to try and kick it around the buoy, unfortunately I kicked it back into my other foot and felt the fin hit…. Didn’t seem to hit hard and at the time I was pretty jacked on racing adrenaline so I didn’t know how bad it was…
PWA: So what happened when you saw the cut to your foot?
Josh Angulo: At that point heat was cancelled due to lack of wind and I popped up to see my buddy and general “make it happen guy” Pieter Bijl right there. I asked him to go get some super glue, while I sailed back to the start boat for the restart. I jumped on the boat, super glued my wound shut and went on to sail a heat that I was in great position, but just stopped planing straight away (like I said, light shifty and gusty).
So when I got back to the beach the local doctors came to have an initial look. That wasn’t going the way I wanted and it was a bit unnerving. Finally the King of the beach, Rado, showed up and rescued me and got me to Arkin and their private Hotel doctor, who took great care of me…
PWA: What was the extent of the injury in the end?
Josh Angulo: The doctor cleaned me up and then I had 6 stitches put in.
PWA: Is everything okay now?
Josh Angulo: Not really. The doctor wasn’t too impressed with all the super glue I put in there, but after some numbing injections, he got it all scraped out… arrgghh :(.
PWA: Ouch… What’s the score? Can you still compete?
Josh Angulo: Initially , I figured I could still compete, but as reality set in, I did understand that it was a pretty deep cut and continuing to push would risk the recovery process. Although we have been so well received and taken care of in Yelken Yacht Club, Awaza. The reality is we weren’t having much conditions, so I decided the best thing is to get back to the USA, have my doctors double check it and work towards a speedy recovery for Fuerteventura.
I would like to send a great thanks to Polimeks, Arkin and Yulia, Rado and everybody else that made this event happen. I also wish all my windsurf colleagues a good event and until …. Fuerte!
PWA: Thanks Josh, we wish you a speedy recovery.
We wish Josh a quick recovery, too!
©PWA/Carter 2014, Chris Yates