3 questions to Will McMillan

08/06/2023

Will McMillan, from Thailand, has been making some impressive iQFOil moves over the past few months and arrived at the Torbole PWA World Cup in Italy on the 10th of May as a virtual unknown. Five days later, he finished the event on the 3rd step of the podium with an impressive speed that surprised all observers! Here we meet THE revelation of the early season, a boy of just 17 who hopes to represent Thailand at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games in Marseille.

Windsurfjournal.com: First, for those who don't know you yet, could you introduce yourself ? What is your background, why are you wearing the colours of Thailand and is it true that you also excelled in altherophilia?
Will McMillan : William McMillan, I turned 17 in April and have been windsurfing since I was 7. My mum is Thai and my dad is from the UK, being born in Sydney, Australia. I had to make some decisions about my future and who I wanted to sail for. I wanted to represent Thailand, and the Windsurfing Association of Thailand have been really helpful and welcoming. They do a great job in bringing people into the sport. I started sailing and racing Optimists at the age of 6 and before that I was a pretty competitive skateboarder, but I had some recurring injuries so my parents, who own a sailing NB Sailsports, got me into sailing, and we have sailed a lot of different boats. I was in the Laser/ILCA at the age of nine and also sailed on the Bic Techno/Techno Plus. I did my first overseas regattas in 2019 with the Techno Plus Worlds, but honestly I was always a bit too big for all the junior/youth classes, so I experimented a lot with my dad, we sailed Ok Dinghies, Finns, 49ers and at the age of 12 I was on the RS:X as well as racing the Waszp and the Moth. Like any normal kid, I played a lot of sports! I loved playing rugby and going to our local Crossfit gym. My other favourite sport was weightlifting and powerlifting. I think if you have seen my Instagram, you will see that I love to deadlift! I think at one point I was the strongest 15-year-old in the world at deadlifts and squats, but that's not really my focus now, and my parents weren't too keen on it either! The pre-Covid and Covid period was a turning point for our local group. My dad had bought me an early NeilPryde Alloy foil, and I'd started foiling in November 2019. In February 2020 Australia was on lockdown and were not allowed to go to school. Luckily sailing "alone" was considered exercise, and so I went to work with Mum and with Mum and Dad (who are on the water most days), and with new Starboard foils, we literally spent 30 hours a week for six months with my mates, including Tash Bryant, Grae Morris, Vaughan O'Shea, Jono Tute, Matt Quinlan and Amelia Quinlan. We spent a lot of time together on the boards. We had some super enthusiastic local coaches at the time, with huge thanks to Daniel Wilson (my coach, sorry super coach!), Jessica Crisp and David Bell, who were and still are trying to keep the stoke flowing into us new kids. When iQFOil kit first arrived in Australia, I knew this was for me and I wanted to be more competitive. At the moment, I have decided that windsurfing is my life. School was really difficult for me before the lockdown, and I found it hard to get back into it after the lockdown. So I asked my parents to let me leave at the end of year 10 in Jan 2022. I told my dad that I wanted to be a professional windsurfer and go to the Olympics, and we discussed giving me 12 months to see if I had the potential and if so, dad would support me in a campaign for in a campaign for Paris 2024. My first trip to Europe was in 2022. Highlights would be racing at the front of the fleet in Hyeres and almost winning a race at my first iQFOil European Championships in Garda and the amazing experience at my first PWA in Japan! Aside from racing, I have made many new friends and had some amazing experiences. Literally, could there be anything better? Mum and Dad have agreed to fund me to Paris and fingers crossed it goes to plan!

WJ: After Japan last year, this PWA event in Italy was your 2nd competition on the World Tour. Were you expecting such a result? And how did the week go overall?
WMM : I was really lucky to be invited to PWA Japan while I was at the iQFOil World Championships in Brest. I was so excited to be competing with legends and sailors I had watched on YouTube. Obviously, I am so grateful to a bunch of people for making this happen for me at such short notice. F4 foils really helped me at the time, and I was introduced by Maciek Rutkowski to Claudio Badiali and the Challenger Sails team, and they were super supportive. I borrowed a board in Japan from my good friend Jun Ho from Singapore. I think it was a lightwind Starboard. Japan was the best introduction you could to PWA, it was challenging, and I was quite competitive. The atmosphere, support and banter between everyone is great fun! Over the Australian summer we made some plans to work with people and planned to do the first two rounds of the 2023 PWA World Cup in between iQFOil commitments. The first trip was to be to Garda. I was lucky enough to be supported by Starboard and Challenger and there was a last minute change in my foil choice. Over the winter I got to know Patrik Diethelm and the Patrik brand and without their amazing help and foil, Garda would have been very different. It's fair to say that with Patrik, Alexandre Cousin, Maciek and Claudio really helped me. Going into the event, I had no expectations, I just wanted to show what I could do and win some races. During the training before the event, I knew I had the speed, and I am very happy with the way things went. I know I had some moments but I just love racing and I see PWA as an integral part of what I want to do. I need to get better on the fin, and I have a lot to work on for the next few years.

WJ: You also follow the iQFOil circuit. Will this very good result in Italy change your programme, and where do you think you'll be heading in the future?
WMM : I think what is so exciting about windsurfing at the moment is the convergence that is happening around foiling. For me, it's great to be able to do PWA and the Olympic iQFOil events, it's a bit like cross-training and when you add in wingfoiling, prone surfing and stand-up foiling, you can literally get out there every day, do something on the water on the water, have a great time, learn, improve, go faster. For the next twelve months iQFOil is my priority, but after Paris I hope to do the full PWA tour in 2025. So for the short term if agreeable with the PWA I will do as much as I can. With support from my parents, I am doing all I can to race as much as possible and have a chance to qualify Thailand for Paris 2024 and do a few special events like PWA World Cup within the time and budget constraints!!! I hope that I have excited a few more potential sponsors in Garda and that I can do even more sailing and racing in different events and venues in the years ahead. At present, I am in Weymouth, UK, training on the IQ before heading to Marseille for the Paris 2024 Olympic Test event and then onto The Hague for the World Sailing iQFOil World champs. After this, I will head to Australia and prepare for the Asian Games in China.