2nd Chance
Aaron MacInstosh from New Zealand, obtained the Bronze olympic medal in Mistral class at the 2000 games held at Sidney, where Camau Espinola (Arg) got his 2nd consecutive Silver on the same class.
After that Camau left windsurfing behind and joined Santi Lange to form one of the top Tornado teams of the last decade.
Aaron decided to follow Camau and sail the Tornado too. Natural thing for us windsurfers to start sailing cats, what else we can sail? a Laser? Star? J24? pffff come on!
So Aaron trained hard for 2008 Olympics and got New Zealand a spot in the 15 slots assigned for the Tornado at Beijing.
But in a last minute decision, the New Zealand olympic comittee decided not to support/pay the expenses for a qualified team (I may guess due to budget issues) and Aaron lost all the hard work done in previous Beijijng games campaign, at least 4 years of an athelte´s life.
Now in July he will be present at Erquy for the 10th anniversary of the F18 Class World Championship for a 2nd chance to show his level on Cat, besides the bronze medal he is a 3 time World Champ on Mistral.
Best of luck to Aaron and his crew.
Above one of the best Tornado clips on the web, McInstosh and Bruce Kendall at Tapakuna, NZ, T Worlds 2007.