Corry Ihuhua
24 October 2006
Walvis Bay — FINIAN Maynard from the British Virgin Islands and Karin Jaggi from Switzerland were crowned as the men's and women's speed windsurfing world champions at the coast over the weekend.
The two dominated the event that started early last week, serving as the final of the championships after three earlier legs held in other countries.
Maynard initially beat former world champion Bjorn Dunkerbeck from Andorras into third place as he captured the title, ahead of Patrik Diethelm from Italy who ended second.
Maynard grabbed the world title in Namibia after he earlier also landed the Fuerteventura crown, which was one of the qualifying legs for the final event.
Jaggi was home and dry before Valerie Ghibaudo of France and Zara Davis from Great Britain, who came third.
Jaggi also won the production title for women, while Diethelm was the winner for men in the same category.
The manufacturers world championship titles went to F2 and North.
The nations ranking is led by France in front of Germany and Great Britain.
Main organiser of the event, Jurgen Geiger, told The Namibian Sport that the competition attracted about 70 windsurfers from across the world.
Walvis Bay has been playing host to the final round of the event for the past 20 years now and according to Geiger, the town has been described as one of the best natural sailing venues in the world.
Apart from the wins, there were also records that were shattered, with Minos Efstathiadis of the Exocet team setting a new Greek record with a speed of 37.21 knots, while a new women's world record in the kite speed was set by Sjouke Bredenkamp from South Africa.
She recorded a speed of 37.24 knots.
Geiger said the total value of the competition was about 500 euros which mainly went for the prizes, but for the organisation of the event the hosts spent a lot more than that.
Participants also came from countries such as Belgium, Denmark and Portugal, but there were no Namibians who competed at the event.
"Over the last few years the number of South African participants has grown and since 2004 the word about this magical place in Africa has spread within the global speed-sailing community," said Geiger.
Namibia will again play host to the next event next year, but Geiger appealed for more sponsors to come on board in an effort to make the sport more popular among Namibians.
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