PWA World Tour Calendar 2021 – News Update

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update 04.10.2021

Provisional PWA World Tour Calendar 2021:

• France – Marignane (May 2021) – cancelled
• Israel (21st – 25th June ) Slalom World Cup 5* – completed
• Spain – Catalonia/Costa Brava (8th – 13th June) – cancelled
• Portugal – Viana do Castelo (21th – 26th June) Slalom World Cup 5* – cancelled
• Croatia (2nd – 7th July) Slalom World Tour 2* – completed
• Spain – Gran Canaria/Pozo Izquierdo (9th – 17th July) Wave World Cup 5*– cancelled
• Sri Lanka (20th – 25th July) Slalom World Cup 5* – postponed until 2022
• Spain – Fuerteventura/Sotavento (29th July – 7th August) Grand Slam 6* (Slalom & Freestyle) – cancelled
• Spain – Tenerife/El Cabezo (August – TBC) Wave World Cup 5* – cancelled
• South Korea – Ulsan/Jinha Beach (5th – 10th September) Slalom World Cup 5* – cancelled
• Denmark – Cold Hawaii/Klitmoller (12th – 18th September) Wave Youth World Cup – completed
• Germany – Sylt/Brandenburger Strand (24th September – 3rd October) Grand Slam 7* (Slalom, Wave & Freestyle) – cancelled
• New Caledonia – Noumea (November – TBC) Slalom World Cup 5* – cancelled
• SOMWR 10 x Marignane PWA Grand Slam, Presented by Greentech Festival (12th – 21th November – confirmed)

SOMWR 10 x Marignane PWA Grand Slam, Presented by Greentech Festival 

The PWA announced an unexpected event, a Grand Slam in South of France. It’s an event that will be an action collaboration between sports, brands and governments, and that will turn negatives to positives.

It’s a multi discipline event (12th – 21th November) that will bring the entire range of PWA athletes to the shores of Southern France (Marignane & Carro) for a contest that will not only showcase all 3 of the main competition disciplines but, for the first time, will generate a 10 x positive environmental impact, through the actions and philosophy of SOMWR…

Marignane PWA Grand Slam Event Poster 2021

Utilizing the excellent resources of Club Nautique Mariganais as well as the Cercle de Voile de Martigues at Carro, the wave, freestyle and slalom sailors will come together for a 10 day festival of natural powered action which will blow the lid of the pandemic and put windsurfing back in front of the worlds media.

For the slalom fleet it will be the third outing for some of the riders at PWA events this year, after the very successful events at Tiberias in Israel, and the lower level 2 star event at Bol in Croatia, but for the freestyle and wave fleet, it will be their first chance to do battle on the PWA Tour since 2019, creating huge anticipation for what will be a showdown of epic proportions.PWA Press

 

The 2021 PWA World Cup Sylt delayed to 2022 due to COVID-19

There was a bit of hope to see a season final of the PWA tour – including all disciplines – on the island of Sylt, Germany in 2021. Now we received the nes about the postponement of the event to 2022. It’s the second year in a row without an event on the island of Sylt. The 2021 PWA competition season comes to a sudden end for women & men. Just for the Youth & Juniors an event in Denmark will happen in September 2021. Let’s hope for a strong comeback of the tour in 2022. Just two events – one 5 star racing event for women and men in Israel and one racing qualifier for women and men in Bol, Croatia happened this season. Both events had great wind conditions and the combined Slalom & foiling format for men only had been tested. Let’s see what the future will bring in the racing disciplines and let’s hope for events in freestyle & waves, too.

Despite the best efforts of ACT Agency, our partners in the PWA World Cup Sylt, the COVID-19 virus has claimed one more victim from the 2021 PWA calendar. Financial challenges brought about by the pandemic, combined with complicated logistics required to permit responsible management of athletes and spectators, and the continued uncertainty about future restrictions amid rising cases in the region, have forced the local organisers to take the reluctant decision to postpone the event by another year until 2022. Much of the support and partnerships in place for the 2021 event will roll over to 2022, ensuring the security of a return of an even bigger and better World Cup Sylt, once we can all put the pandemic behind us and life gets back to something more like normal. We know this will be a disappointment to all of you and, in particular, the wave and freestyle fleets and fans who have not had any top level PWA competition for some time, but we continue to be somewhat at the mercy of COVID, so can only now focus our efforts on the Youth and Junior World Cup at Klitmoller, and the prospect of a return to a full competition season for 2022. PWA World Tour

The 2021 South Korea event is cancelled – the current COVID cases are rising and reached the highest numbers in the Asian country

The Ulsan PWA World Cup in Korea is the latest event to fall victim to COVID. We had hoped that an exemption to the national restrictions would be issued for the event, meaning that competitors and crew would be able to attend the event without the required 14 days in quarantine on arrival, but due to concerns over the spread of the Delta variant of the virus, the authorities in Korea have decided that they cannot offer any such exemption. As a result, the local organizers were left with little choice but to cancel the 2021 event and delay until 2022 instead. We know this will be a blow to everyone in the windsurfing world, but we have to continue to ride out the storm until the virus can no longer hold us back. We are still hoping to bring you a great event from Sylt, Germany later in the year. PWA World Tour

The PWA announces further event cancellations for 2021, but the Slalom events in Israel & Croatia will take place

We are excited to be gearing up for the first return of PWA World Cup Slalom in 18 months in Israel in a few weeks, but unfortunately the news elsewhere on the tour is not as positive. Efforts to combat the pandemic have made great steps forward as vaccination programs have been rolled out, but these programs have not taken effect as fast as had been hoped and there are still considerable restrictions in place, as well as a lot of uncertainty about when those restriction can be reliably expected to be removed. Every event is different and the exact reasons that decide whether an event can go ahead or not vary, but in each case, COVID-19 has been the cause of those issues. The decision to cancel an event is not one that the PWA takes itself, but that has been taken locally by either the local event organizer, local or national authorities whose permission is required for the event, or by sponsors or other bodies funding events, based on the circumstances they find themselves in. As we have got further and further into the year, the time left for the impact of the COVID pandemic to be reduced has become less and less and, now, unfortunately, we have to announce the cancellation of several events due to COVID-19 restrictions. PWA World Tour

 

All three of the Canaries events have had to be cancelled due to ongoing uncertainty about restrictions, and increased costs created by the pandemic, meaning that there will not be events at Pozo, Fuerteventura or Tenerife for the second year running. The ongoing construction work at the beach at Pozo also created significant difficulties.

The new slalom event planned for Sri Lanka has now been postponed until 2022 also, after the local tourism authorities, who are heavily supporting the event, decided that they would have to postpone due to increasing COVID levels in the country.

The biennial PWA Tour visit to New Caledonia has also been cancelled for 2021 due to substantial travel restrictions that remain in place with no projected easing in good time for the event to go ahead.

The Croatia slalom event will go ahead, and we are currently studying options to potentially upgrade the event from a 2 star event to a full counting 5 star World Cup, in light of other cancellations and to provide more top level competition for the riders, the fans and the industry. We will bring you more news as this situation develops.

The remaining events on the calendar in Jinha Beach/South Korea, Klitmoller/Denmark and Sylt/Germany are all still in planning and we have high hopes that they can go ahead.

The PWA confirms their first event in 2021 – The World Cup Slalom is back

The PWA is pleased to announce the confirmation of the first World Cup Slalom event to take place since the start of the pandemic. The 2021 Tiberias PWA World Cup will take place in Israel from the 21st to 25th June at the city of Tiberias, on the Western shores of the Sea of Galilee. Unfortunately the political situation doesn’t look so positive in Israel. Violence between Israelis and Palestinians is happening at the moment. The confrontation actually escalates into rocket firing, airstrikes and death.

• video of Yarden Meir and friends from the Sea of Galilee

The Tiberias PWA World Cup will truly be an event of firsts. As well as being the first event of the new slalom format and the first slalom event with the new equal prize money structure, it is the first PWA slalom world cup to take place in Israel and the first to showcase the PWA’s new media service, delivering a range of content from live streaming, to daily online highlights and even including the first in what will be a new series of TV shows on the PWA tour. Perhaps more than anything though, as the first, full blown PWA world cup to take place since New Caledonia in 2019. It will be a welcome return of top level PWA windsurfing competition and all eyes of the windsurfing world will undoubtedly be turned on Tiberias towards the end of June.

As the most prominent athlete in the Israeli windsurfing scene, Arnon Dagan (ISR-1) played an integral part in bringing the event to Israel, alongside the local event organizers – Comtecgroup and Target-Market.

Since I was 13 years old, I always looked up to the sailors of the PWA. I Could never imagine that the PWA will hold an event in Israel one day. In the past 15 years I have been trying to bring the tour to Israel and now finally its happening! Israel has incredible spots for windsurfing, from Eilat in the South, to Haifa in the North. The lake of Galilee in Tveria is one of the most consistent places in the world for wind in the summer. I can’t wait to welcome my friends and windsurfing superstars and see them flying on the water. It is an amazing development for the sport of windsurfing in Israel and everyone here is super excited. Arnon Dagan

 

PWA President, Jimmy Diaz (ISV-11) was equally enthusiastic.

The past 14 months have been incredibly tough for all the riders on the PWA tour and organising events in these unprecedented times has created unique challenges. To be able to realise any events right now is a great achievement, but to have one in such a great and historic location, with such great conditions, is a huge boost to our sport and to the PWA Tour. We are grateful to both the city of Tberias, Comtecgroup, Target-Market and Arnon for their efforts in making this a reality and we are all looking forward to being back on the start line. Jimmy Diaz

 

The PWA announced their updated tour calendar today

9 pro events and one youth event are still on on the calendar: 3 Wave, 2 Freestyle, 1 youth wave, 2 Slalom only & 5 Slalom/Foil competitions. The events in France, Spain/Costa Brava & Portugal are cancelled.

PWA: “Since we published our tentative schedule just under a month ago, the progress towards the lifting of COVID restrictions has not progressed as quickly as we might have hoped. Although the long term outlook is still positive, we have been monitoring the situation closely with our event partners and there are a few changes.

Unfortunately, due to the ongoing uncertainty of current circumstances, the events in France, Costa Brava and Portugal have had to be cancelled for the 2021 season. In each case, local authorities have not been able to give any indication of if or when the ban on events might be lifted, and permission granted for the events to go ahead. That uncertainty has also led to commercial support being deferred to the 2022 season and has prevented other financial support from being confirmed in time for proper event planning to continue. Although postponing to later in 2021 has been considered, no viable options were available, making it impossible for the events to continue this year. The cancellations are purely due to the pandemic though, meaning that work done to realize the events in the 2021 season will not be lost, with all events expected to return in 2022.

On a more positive note, the Slalom World Cup at Tiberias in Israel, has been moved to 21st to 25th June which will give the event even be greater assurance of great conditions. Many of the required permissions for the event to take place are already in place and we expect to be able to fully confirm the event in the near future.”

The PWA World Tour announced their provisional PWA World Tour Calendar 2021 on February 22, 2021.

The first event could happen in France in May. 13 events are announced in total: 10 racing events (6 are confirmed), 3 wave events (2 are confirmed), 1 youth only wave event and 2 freestyle events (both are confirmed).

It looks like racing (including slalom and foil) is the dominating discipline nowadays. With events in Israel and Sri Lanka two new destinations are added. The event in Viana do Castelo in Portugal returns to the calendar after two years abstinence. New Caledonia, Noumea could host the Slalom finals again like in 2019.

PWA: As you can all imagine, the enormous levels of uncertainty, surrounding travel and large scale events, have had a significant impact on the PWA and the PWA Tour. Despite huge efforts on the part of our event organizers, 2020 saw only 2 events take place, with the very successful 1 Star Slalom World Tour event in Croatia, and enormously popular Youth Wave World Cup in Klitmoller both managing to avoid the worst of the pandemic and go ahead as planned. Despite the challenges, we have been working hard with our event partners to ensure that top flight windsurfing does not disappear and that we can get back on the water, to compete, as soon as possible. To that end, we are pleased to release a tentative schedule of events that we are working to bring you for 2021. Due to the pandemic, it is still possible that anything could change, and events may be rescheduled to different dates, switch to different disciplines, or change in status from World Cup or Grand Slam to something lower. In the worst cases, it may be that we are forced to cancel events.