PWA Tiberias 2021: Nico Goyard redefines Slalom Racing
All images Carter / PWA Worlds Tour. — Some years ago when sail foiling saw a renewed drive I received material to publish like if it were something extraordinary, but there was nothing not achieved before by pioneers like Jams Grogono & Icarus, Eric Tabarly and many others.
Some even got mad as I didn’t publish their stuff in a more prolific way.
For me the real challenge was to foil while racing.
Foiling in the Sail Racing arena has one and only goal and valid definition: Its is faster or not than their floating counter part over the race course?
Any other foiling devel is great fun, excellent revisited R&D but not the real stuff that will define new Racing milestones like these:
Burvill and his Flying Moth in the 2000s, Fischer & Exploder going for the Mayfly in the A-Class as a first attempt, Mischa and DNA camp consolidating the concept, TNZ and the Foiling Tractor, FP Project by Udin & Fischer, Starboard & Costa Hoevel, Phantom and many others behind the PWA and Formula Foil Course racing and Olympic achievement, the Kitefoil racing gang and of course Nico Goyard’s achievements.
The guy already won the PWA Course Foil Racing Tour , the Formula Foil World Championships, and also main IQ Foil event this year. The guy is the #1 Foil sailor today, any Class/Discipline you can throw at him.
What he did today? He redefined the fastest Windsurfing racing mode. PWA Slalom had already adopted Foil racing since last year, and even today at Tiberias (Israel) , many heats were sailed with the entire starting line on foils (which makes a more efficient racing for unstable wind conditions).
But still when full breeze is on, say +20-25knots the standard fin floating mode was the choice for top PWA riders. Today Nico Goyard decided to stick to his foiling equipment in the high breeze and delivered one of the most impressive performances ever seen in Windsurfing, winning his heats and the day’s Final vs all others in floating Slalom mode.
It was not only sheer speed, as fin riders were super fast too, but the perfect combination of speed and handling through gybes, extreme control and confidence in your equipment (Phantom Foil, Sail & board) to go for those Slalom reaches in that wind.
Simply put if the other riders want to have a chance in the breeze in coming races, they better start training foil Slalom in +25knots as Nico has been doing for a while.
PWA allowed to choose Fin or Foil in this event, and surely two disciplines might be implemented soon. One thing is for sure:
The fastest one will be on Foils.
Read more details and full results at www.pwaworldtour.com
Live Stream Replay at https://livestream.com/accounts/9351246/events/9726792
