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New Zealand's top windfoilers crucially won't be walking into the unknown when they line up at the iQFoil World Championships that kick off in Brest tonight (NZ time).
As a new group of sailors in a new Olympic sport, the team had little idea what to expect when they competed in Europe at the start of the year. Now they have that experience under the foils and also have the benefit of having spent the last six weeks at the venue for these world championships.
"We are essentially locals now," windfoiling coach JP Tobin said. "The only people who have been in Brest longer than us are the French themselves and it's been really good for the crew to work in closely with the French.
"In terms of preparation, they will be as ready as they will ever be. The training has been going really well and there were some solid results in a couple of coaches regattas here. There’s actually a little bit of confidence around the team, which is pretty cool considering they are all very green having done only one European trip."
Four Kiwi men and one woman will be among the 266 competitors from 45 countries in Brest.
Racing will be over six days and will comprise a mixture of fleet and slalom racing as well as a marathon race. Competitors need to be versatile across all formats, especially as slalom races typically take about five minutes and marathon races are upwards of an hour.
Up to 10 races are scheduled over two days of qualifying before the fleets are split for the finals series. The top-10 medal race format is quite different to any other Olympic class, with a quarter-final and semifinal before the top three battle it out for the medals in a high-stakes, one-off race.
Veerle ten Have will be targeting that top 10 after impressing with some outstanding results earlier in the year. She was seventh at the Princess Sofia World Cup event, fifth at the Olympic Week Regatta and 12th at the European championships.
Josh Armit, Thomas Crook and Eli Liefting all showed good potential when racing in Europe in their last block and also racing at the world championships will be Antonio Cozzolino.
Patrick Haybittle and Brianna Orams have unfortunately had to withdraw from the event due to Covid-19.
Windfoiling will be on the programme for the 2024 Paris Olympics, replacing the RS:X as the Olympic windsurfing equipment, and it quickly became apparent it suited a different type of sailor.
The RS:X was dominated by lighter and immensely fit athletes but power and strength are key ingredients in windfoiling and most of the New Zealand sailors have been working hard on that over the winter.
"Our guys are fit, fast, have good equipment and they know the venue," Tobin said. "Now we just need to let them go. It’s all very exciting."
New Zealand sailors competing at the iQFoil world championships in Brest this week:
Men: Josh Armit, Antonio Cozzolino, Thomas Crook, Eli Liefting
Women: Veerle ten Have
- Pic: Thomas Crook in action in training last week. Photo: Tasman Rowntree.
