2016 IFCA Worlds Summary
After 5 days of racing, wind between 12 and 25 knots, 77 heats in total the new IFCA Slalom Masters World Champion was announced.
The weeks and month before the this years IFCA Slalom Youth & Masters World Championships were drawn by ups and downs. Because of the opaque political situation in Egypt and therefore insufficient registered competitors unfortunately the Youth World Championships were cancelled by the IFCA a few days before start. Anyway, it was the 1st of July when the IFCA Slalom Masters World Championships 2016 started at the windsurf school “SurfMotion” in Soma Bay, Egypt. The organizer of the event and head of SurfMotion invited the world to celebrate the first IFCA competition in Egypt since 23 years. 17 windsurfers from 11 different countries and two continents followed his call and came to register for the competition. During the previous weeks, the team of SurfMotion was busy to prepare the location and built a huge event set up with a big stage, a judge tower, a small spectators stand and a 900 square meter tent for the material of the races, to mention just a few results of the effort, which everyone put in this event. Furthermore on site the competitors got lunch for free as well as water all day long. On registration day, the officials welcomed all the competitors, handed out the event shirts and sailing stickers and invited everyone to make a warm-up session in the racing area, so that all racers could get used to the conditions in Soma Bay. In the evening the start of the event was celebrated with a big opening party on the beach. On the 2nd of July, finally the competition could start. In flat water with around 18 knots 6 Master and Grandmaster started their first heat. The 11 Masters and Grandmasters were divided into 2 heats, which led into an A and B final. Because of just 6 competitors in the category Juniors & Youth, they could skip all pre eliminations and ride the eliminations directly. After 5 days of racing, wind between 12 and 25 knots, 77 heats in total, 13 eliminations of the Masters and Grandmasters, 25 eliminations of the Juniors & Youth, 3 false starts, 3 protests and 2 broken boards, the new IFCA Slalom Masters World Champion was announced. Marco Begalli from Italy was able to prevail and is the new Champion. It have been tight races, but in the end he sent Erkan Morgan and Tayfun Onur from Turkey to rank two and three. In the Grandmasters division Marco also won the title. Rank two and three went to Philip Adamidis from Greece and Markus Purwitzer from Austria. Another Italian won the category Junior & Youth, Francesco Scagliola. Rank two went to Peter Nors from Denmark and the third rank went to Tim Turpin from France. In the evening of the last racing day everyone attended the award ceremony and the following party on the beach. After many exciting races, happy winners, funny crashes, funky parties and strong winds, the competitors, the officials, the audience and the team of SurfMotion were celebrating together six successful days in Soma Bay at a small but mighty event, which wasn´t the last event at SurfMotion “Inshallah!” (Arabic: God willing). Stay tuned on Facebook (www.facebook.com/IFCA.JYM.Worlds.2016) well as on the official event homepage under ifca.surfmotion.com.