World Championships ‘23
I’m currently sitting on a flight from Amsterdam to Dallas on my way back home to Tampa, so I decided to give an update. I just wrapped up my summer training block and “season”. Windsurfing doesn’t necessarily have an off-season per se, but it does have peak regattas that you build a schedule around. Our main event of this season was the World Championship in the Netherlands and therefore after Long Beach, we were focused on preparing for it. We went to Marseille and tried to dial in speed, equipment, and maneuvers. We were fortunate to have four days of mistral conditions and hence got to practice in big breeze and big waves. I was excited to feel my confidence increasing in the swell downwind and feeling fast as well. We also got to train with some teams from other countries which was super nice to have more girls to train with. Perhaps my favorite day of the training camp was our marathon practice day. The third race format (other than slalom and course racing) is a marathon race in which we race for around an hour. This is a totally different ballpark compared to course races which usually take around 20 minutes and slalom races which take about 5 minutes. It requires more endurance, more focus, and a heightened ability to see far into the future. The day we practiced in Marseille we did long races around the islands in the bay, and it was fun to get to windsurf so far just focusing on yourself, your speed, and the wind. After the training block in Marseille, we took the train to The Hague in the Netherlands (we stopped in Paris for 24 hours on the way!) to handle the final preparations for the Worlds.
This was my first ever World Championship in the iQFOiL. The event was such an incredible experience both in terms of learning and improving on the water and being able to participate in the biggest regatta during the 2024 quad. The event was the Worlds for all the Olympic sailing classes and had over 1200 competitors and was simply a huge production. The city put up street signs with directions to the different boat parks and there were advertisements for the event along the streets and several bus stations. This was my second big regatta after the Princesa Sofia Regatta in Palma, Spain in April. Along with having so many boards on the starting line, I was once again up against the best in the world. Therefore, maybe a tad out of my league, I was ready to learn and improve as much as possible during the event.
My event was full of incredibly promising moments that I couldn’t seem to extend for whole races. I would have good first-mark roundings (even rounded once in 5th!) but was unable to sail cleanly enough to stay with the top of the fleet. The fleet is so talented that even the smallest mistake means a lot of lost places. It was important for me to learn just how important every single millisecond of the race is; there was zero room for error. Despite not showing up and performing perhaps as well as I had hoped, I am extremely pleased with several moments of the regatta that showed me I can compete with the best in the world. I learned that I am just as fast as the top girls and just need to have clean consistent races and the results will come. Overall, I am extremely excited about the progress the team and I are making and can’t wait to get back on the board.
After the regatta, my parents and I got to explore Paris, Brussels, and Amsterdam. It was so much fun and a nice break. Once I get back home, its back to the gym and back to the foil to keep working and improving!
