3 questions to Matteo Iachino

24/11/2023

7 years after his 1st world title, Italy's Matteo Iachino has once again been crowned PWA World Champion in slalom at the end of an eventful season in Japan. For Windsurfjournal.com, he talks about his 2023 season and his favourite discipline, which has changed a lot in recent years.

Windsurfjournal.com: It's been a long road since 2016 and your first world title in slalom. We can imagine that your joy is immense. How do you look back on this 2023 season?
Matteo Iachino: It has been a really tough season. We started in Garda in April. We were unlucky with the conditions. My light wind fuselage broke the day before the competition, and I was stuck with the wrong one for the races. 6th place… definitely not what I wanted especially knowing in light wind I was really competitive this year. We moved to Pozo where the wind was right in between what I registered. Not enough for the 6.5 fin but too strong for the 6 HG6 Foil I registered as the smallest foil sail. I was third till the last elimination in which one Pierre Mortefon overtook me by one point and I ended up 4. After Pozo I worked double to be able to use the 5.5 fin on foil. I completely changed the way I rigged it and I also did change the rake of the foil and the back wing angle. In the end, it worked. In Fuerte I got a nice 3rd place. The 5 foil would have been working better for sure. Sylt was good for me. I was feeling fast and comfortable, I was really close to win it, but I had some mistakes and I got a 2nd place in the end. Japan was a rollercoaster again pushing the 5.5 fin on foil but also a couple eliminations on 8.0 in medium light winds. A great second place also in Japan. And the second title came. Insane feeling. So much work went into five races this year. So much work went into these last seven years. Going to the gym, to the water, traveling, testing, all with only one goal in my head all this time. So much effort to be on top on foil after being there on fin years ago. I am still not used to give so much importance to the gear. In fin with average gear, you can still be top 3 if you are excellent and ready. On foil forget about it. You have to have the whole set on top of the game. The rider counts half than before. I had to learn this before being able to be there last year, fighting until the last moment and getting second equal points with first. I had to start spending less time on the water and more understanding how the sail has to be, the boards have to cut the air and the foil has to glide or create power. Working in direct contact with Ben Severne, Rémi Vila and Herki from Z-Foils in a whole new level to make them understand what I needed and them trying to explain an ignorant windsurfer hydrodynamics, aerodynamics, flex and twist of the sails. I had to improve this into this year finally able to win it. I love windsurfing and I really wanted a second title after 2016 one. This season has just been great.

WJ: The incident in Japan is a textbook case on the PWA World Tour. Do you think that in the future, sporting results will be decided as much on the beach as on the water?
MI: As I said in the previous answer, if there is a “problem” in this, it’s the foil discipline. Don’t get me wrong, problem, not in a necessarily bad way. The foil brought our beloved sport to a whole new level. A new level of performance on the water, but also a completely new level of gear trimm required by us and by the brand. As I said before, on fin you couldn’t win an elimination only because you had great gear, but you were an average sailor. Forget about it. On foil, it is possible and it happens. Obviously to be there all the time you need to be a top athlete but the gear matters so much that it's a joke compared to before. That’s why we would all be hungry to improve the sail from one event to another. The development is so fast and when you test a proto for next year, and you go 1/2 knots faster than with the sail you are competing on in that season it really sucks because you want to compete on the new machine. And this happens almost every time we received a new bunch of prototypes to test for the next season. I hope this incident will stop other riders and brands taking the risk in doing something wrong because it's really bad for the other competitors that play fair, and it could have really bad consequences like this time. I do also hope the PWA will be on it more, checking the gear more often so that if anything happens (but hopefully it won’t happen anymore), it can be done before the last event of the season. Random checks should be done at every event to prevent these situations. We all want the foil to be there? I do… but that’s the consequence, and we have to be ready for that. We're not "racing gipsies" anymore putting in a fin with two screws and then running to fight on the water. We are riders with helmets, auto safe opening harness hooks, impact vests and, at the same time we measure, the angle of all the foil parts, tune all the battens, remove weight from the board using different kind of material from the screws… I think there are two questions now. Almost engenders with no degree on the beach. We either make the controls random at every event or we go custom and keep developing, but I am afraid this second scenario would kill the sport again as it happened in the past and would stop newcomers training to join the tour.

WJ: Your partner Blanca Alabau has also been crowned world champion, which is unprecedented in the history of the sport. What do you think of this double victory as a couple?
MI: What can I say. It’s amazing. It’s not a dream come true because I actually never thought it could be possible and I tried not to think about it before this last event. She’s been so committed and she has been putting so much work in to improve in all the conditions. I’m really happy for her achievement and I can’t be happier than now sharing the title with her.