One Goyard can hide another

19/10/2022

The best windsurfers in the world competed Tuesday in Brest Bay during the qualifying heats to define the Gold, Silver & Bronze fleets. Thomas Goyard (FRA3) is making an impressive comeback after the Olympics leading the men’s category so far, followed by Josh Armit (NZL59) and the German Sebastian Koerdel (GER220). On the women's side, the winds in Brest favoured the Spaniard Pilar Lamadrid (ESP12), who is leading the women’s overall ranking, followed by Islay Watson (GBR529) and Marta Maggetti (ITA157).

While no races could be validated Monday due to a lack of wind, the number of qualifying races ran Tuesday defined the Gold, Silver and Bronze fleets. The first races took place on this second day of iQFOiL World Championship, taking advantage of the magnificent conditions of the Rade de Brest, with winds of 9 to 20 knots coming from the land and beautiful sunshine. Lilian De Geus (NED3) testifies happily “I’m really happy we’re racing, we were so excited. After yesterday on the shore, it is really nice racing, doing some slalom!”.
After 3 races run in the Slalom format for the men, the fleets went to run course racing. Thomas Goyard (FRA3), silver medalist at Tokyo 2020 in RS:X, flew through his fleet winning two slalom races and the last course of the day, the course race. Josh Armit (NZL95) took the win on all the slalom races of his fleet and finished 5th on the Course Race, which confirms him at the second place of the men overall ranking so far. Sebastian Koerdel (GER220), who stopped at the foot of the world podium at Lake Silvaplana last year, moves up to third place after this first day of racing (unless something changes after protests). On his return to shore, he shared his feelings with a smile on his face: “So the first day of iQFOiL Worlds is done. It was a very nice day for me. Although it was very very difficult, like a lot of people had difficulties. Also my first race was very hard because the wind dropped at the end so I lost a lot of positions. But then I came back in the next races and I’m in third position now, it is really good for me, last year in the Worlds at was 4th so now at the first day I am one position better but it is still a long event, let’s see what will happen the next days. The next time we are going to Gold Silver and Bronze racing. And it is crazy to have some many people here like we are three full fleets and it is very special to be part of an event that has so many people.”
Nicolas Goyard (FRA465), sixth time World Champion, greatly expected in this competition, couldn’t make it to the Gold Fleet. After a bad first race finishing last, he won the next slalom race but went onto another bad position gaining himself a 13th place. Unfortunately, the Race Course did not allow him to qualify for the Gold fleet. Charlie Dixon (GBR724) current Junior World Champion managed a first place in the last slalom race of his fleet and finished in the top 30 of the overall ranking.

On the other hand, after a long wait on shore for the women fleets, they managed to run three slalom races and two Racing Courses. The Andalusian Pilar Lamadrid (ESP12), led during the 3 slalom races and got a 1-3 on the course race, and now flies over the women’s top ranking. Waiting time on shore seemed long to Islay Watson (GBR529), but she came back with a well-deserved second place at the overalls: “It was a really long day, we did a bit of waiting, the wind has been up and down, but it was really good to go out there and get started!”.
As Nicolas Goyard, the last year's women's World Champion Helene Noesmen (FRA57) is ranking 35th in the overall ranking after this first day racing. After a bad first race, she did not manage to catch up with the head of the fleet on the following races. Finally, the local Lucie Belbeoch (FRA18) qualifies to the Gold Fleet with a great start on this World Championship at the 10th position at home!
To conclude, the competitors of the Olympic class iQFOiL took pleasure competing in Brest today, the good weather and the strong wind allowed to define the Gold and Silver fleet. The words of Polish Pawel Tarnowski (POL182), three times World Champions, resume the day: "For sure it's going to be hard because there are a lot of very good guys, everyone is prepared. It's the world championship, and there is no easy race to compete in. ... This is a beautiful place after all, of course we had a lot of rain before, a lot of bad weather, but today we finally have some sunshine, so I'm super happy!"