Formula Foil World Championship at Circolo Surf Torbole - Overall
by Elena Giolai 22 Jun 2023 15:38 BST
A wonderful week of windsurfing, racing, wind and sunshine came to an end in Torbole, which characterised the Formula Foil World Championship organised by the Circolo Surf Torbole.
A positive atmosphere also among the racers, of very different ages with juniors under 17 up to veterans, who even went over 70; and for a foil regatta this is admirable and a sign of great passion! Fun between amateur and professional athletes is certainly the element that characterised the championship, but it well represents the spirit of the Formula Foil class, which aims to bring more and more enthusiasts together, especially in this new foil era.
From a sporting point of view it was a confrontation over many races, 25 as scheduled; today the last two took place; the results therefore leave no doubt as to the merit of the final positions. Everyone was able to make up for mistakes thanks to no less than four discards applied to the total number of races; new world champion Elia Colombo (third in the 2022 edition), who with 18 partial victories really won, leaving 20 points to the Circolo Surf Torbole athlete Jacopo Renna, who was good at keeping second position despite the attacks of Poland's Tomasz Romanowski, third overall.
Jacopo was also first in the FR1 sub-category. Although the junior and master's titles were awarded at the world championships last March in Argentina, it is worth noting the victory among the masters of Spaniard Fernando Martinez del Cerro, who was also competitive among the seniors, with his excellent sixth place finish. The same for Poland's Dittrich Pawel, first among the Grand Masters and ninth overall.
Also among the juniors a good training opportunity before the iQFoil European Youth Championships, also scheduled in Torbole from 1 to 8 July: Jacopo Gavioli won among the juniors and Valentino Bewlett among the juniors, but the real challenge will be at the iQFoil Continental Championships where the absolute record of participants has now reached 400. Among the females, a Norwegian victory with Helle Oppedal, the new overall world champion. Italy's Medea Falcioni was the first junior, but for her too it is now time to train for the iQFoil Europeans. Together with the very young, there were also the less young, the veterans, to be rewarded if only for the spirit of facing a foil regatta over 60.
Francesco Zarbo, President of the International Formula Windsurfing Class: "We wanted a new division of the Formula Windsurfing class, which is called FR1. FOIL RACE 1, a division of the Formula Windsurfing class, in which the athlete participates in an event with one board, one sail, and one foil appendage. There are gender and age sub-categories (youth, women and juniors) involving sails with a maximum surface area: 9 square metres for seniors, 8 square metres for Y and W, 7 for juniors.
The spirit is to offer the possibility for more athletes to participate: it attracts IQ foil riders who find in FR1 a division homologous to their sub-divisions and reduces costs by guaranteeing shared fun. Being able to use a board, a sail and a foil has interested many young people who have also been able to take advantage of the iQFoil in this world championship: from an idea of Roberto Pierani of 2022, an experienced and important technician, a project was born that the Class has made its own and developed for an ever wider diffusion of the discipline.
Lastly, we have harmonised between the IFCA (International Funboard Class Association) and the IFWC (International Formula Windsurfing Class) the maximum width of the board at 95 cm to allow riders to take part in as many competitions as possible with the same set of materials.
I hope this is a factor that will help develop Formula Foil, and all windsurfing. I hope that the homologation of materials that we are promoting will be a cue for all the leaders of the national associations to arrive at a fungibility of class cards, with the appropriate not impossible adjustments, in order to offer clubs more and more participatory and sustainable events".
In the mean time, the Circolo Surf Torbole is looking ahead: from Friday to Sunday the legendary "RRD One HourClassic" is scheduled, a one-hour challenge between one side and the other of Garda Trentino, which has been repeated since the 1990s. About a hundred people will participate, with the possibility of breaking a new hour record, both fin and slalom: but this will depend a lot on the intensity of the wind as well as the skill of the riders.
See full results here...