Follow the Black Team in Costa Brava. Get ready for the second instalment of the 2013 PWA slalom events, in Costa Brava. Taking part: Alberto Menegatti, Andrea Cucchi, Malte Reuscher, Andrea Rosati, Pascal Toselli, Capulcu Bora Kozanoglu and Maciek Rutkowski, Enrico Marotti.
A QUICK FEED BACK ON THE BLACK TEAM AFTER COSTA BRAVA PWA SLALOM 2013
[blockquote cite=”Maciek Rutkowski” type=”center”]I had missed the Korean PWA event in May as I went to the Defiwind instead. The whole team was spread out between the 2 mentioned events and also the Ifca worlds in Sylt that time. We were clear that Alberto Menegatti did a big step in his results by winning Korea, and in the other 2 mentioned events the results were also great, but what would the whole P7 team do in a PWA event together?
For our slalom Black Team, our 2 targets were to have 2 experienced riders and 4 very young sailors. We did not go for the biggest names for the experienced sailors group, but for 2 names, which we knew that with a good winter of training, they could have reached the top level of the biggest names: therefore we had selected Alberto Menegatti and Pascal Toselli. Both 28 year old. About 10 years younger, if not more, than those who have been winning events in the last 5 years! The youngest riders had then to be under 24 and also join the winter training with the top 2 of the team.
Costa Brava gave us a very clear picture of the status of our Black Team concept! It was nice to have all my ‘kids around’. They all were super motivated and always happy smiling, happy to be racing…their attitude was simply positive.
Once racing had started I kept seeing a lot of Black Sails in the front of each heat! It was not about only about Alberto Menegatti and Pascal Toselli, but it was the young Black Team showing off! I could not believe it. They kicked my ass in some of the heats!
The 22 years old Oliver Tom Schliemann won more then one heat. Enrico Marotti from Croatia 22 years old at his second PWA experience, nailed a lot of starts, won a lot of heats, and even won the last looser final of the event. Malte Reuscher, 23 years old entered 2 looser finals out of 4 races. Last but not least, the Polish Maciek Rutkowski of 21 year old, finished 12 overall! Apart from Maciek, for all 3 other youngsters, in the end they missed to be top 20 position, by few points,but still stayed in the price money in the top 24. They did not win the event, they did not win one whole round, but to see such a high level between this younger riders, gave us a good feeling. The feeling that we contributed to make our sport have younger riders being strong at such high level events. Not only pushing for our brand to have a great result, but to create a important base for the future of our sport.[/blockquote]
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It’s also important to realize the potential of the likes of Maciek Rutkowski (Patrik / Point-7) – 21 – who also enjoyed his best result in a winners’ final as he finished seventh in the first elimination of the week, whilst Enrico Marotti (Starboard / Point-7) – 22 – was able to claim ninth in the final elimination of the week, to prove that there is plenty of young talent coming through the ranks and starting to blossom, which should hopefully entice more young sailors to consider slalom as a discipline to pursue.
Alberto Menegatti is still holding a great third position overall after a big mistake in the first slalom in Costa Brava, where being too thirsty to win, he blindly chased Ross Williams to the wrong mark to try to overtake him. Also in the last fourth race another unlucky situation for Alberto, which brought the breakage of his boom head took out the chance for him to make it to the another podium. Finishing the event in 8th postion, with one win in the looser final, one win in the winner finals. Unfortunatelly one mistake too much. Follow the exciting win of the final Alberto won.
Alberto Menegatti (Starboard / Point-7) came into the event as the leader of the tour, but a combination of bad luck and a major error – sailing to the wrong mark in the opening elimination – cost him dearly. The Italian finished eighth overall and still finds himself in third place overall. Menegatti reaffirmed his title winning credentials with another bullet in the third elimination, so it remains to be seen whether his mistake in the first race comes back to haunt him, come the end of the season.
[blockquote cite=”Alberto Menegatti | ITA-4″ type=”center”]What else to say….yes myself… I finished 9th. I had finished top 5 in world rankings before and international events. Also at the PWA when we had formula. I had entered finals in the last years, but…. it was the first time I have entered top 10. Feels funny to have had this result now when I’m now busy with so many things and not having the focus I had in the past for racing.[/blockquote]
[blockquote cite=”PWA official press release” type=”center”]Andrea Cucchi (Starboard / Point-7) achieved his first top ten finish on the PWA in almost a decade with a fantastic display of sailing. The man behind Point-7 made one appearance in a winners’ final along with two losers’ finals to claim his best finish in a very long time.
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[blockquote cite=”Andrea Cucchi” type=”center”]Our riders, have impressed us. Everyone improved so much with this new training team system. It has allowed everyone to push more their limits, share information for the whole team to improve, and a faster and more efficient development on gear. It was just impressive to see even 4 Point-7 in the looser finals, and still one in the winner final at times. Making this 5 black sails in the top 16 in some of the slalom rounds. Great work boys, was fun to see all this live![/blockquote]
DAILY UPDATES
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-3 DAYS TO COMPETITION.
Costa Brava here we come. – 3 to the event. With Alberto Menegatti we checked the forecast daily to see when it was worth going to Costa Brava in advance to tune up the gear for those local water conditions. Racing starts on Tuesday so we decided to leave on Friday afternoon to be on Saturday morning at the event site as forecast was good for all Saturday. From evening we left at 10.30pm as Alberto took ages to get his stuff ready. When you are leading the world championships, packing means bringing along at least 2-3 sets of gear to be safe. His fin bag has maybe 10-15 fins of each same size fin….time that each 1cm from 30 to 48! This gave time to have a nice dinner with my parents which came to visit us and their loved grandchilds, and there fore my wife and kids. So it was not bad to ebe some hours late to the start. 1100km to go, and at 4am we were driving through Gruissan, where I was just there 3 weeks ago and it was super windy. Tired but excited to get to Costa Brava to get on the water, we arrived at the Balena Allegra camping which is hosting the event, and it was thundering, and raining like hell. As we are staying the bungalows of the camps, we then went shopping for food, ate, and went to sleep waiting for the rain to stop and recover from the trip. At 4pm the clouds were away, the wind came up and we had a great session from 5 to 9pm. Alberto was testing around 6 fins and 2 masts, and I was just racing beside him as his reference rabbit! Quick dinner some work for me, and some relaxing movie for him…and great night of sleeping!
-2 DAYS TO COMPETITION:
We had great 9.3 winds this morning. The french team were out with the coach and had set up a training course. They were happy to have others also to join their trainig. Pascal Toselli, Oliver Tom have also arrived today from the Black Team… …guys come and get your Black Team shirts, I got them here for you! At 2 pm most of the sailor went back ashore to have a break some lunch. The rain arrived, the wind died, and so there was not afternoon second session. Tomorrow looks nice and windy. Tuesday racing starts. Now everyone is relaxing in their bungalaws, some are working, some are sleeping, some are watching movies, skyping their girlfriends and someone like Alberto Menegatti is cutting his sail numbers and stickering his sails…under the rain ahhahah… Here the pic of the day…. check out the lock and we leave you to comment! More pics on facebook.
-1 DAY TO COMPETITION:
Let us introduce you to Maciek Rutkowski training! Probably one of the youngest PWA windsurfer in slalom. 21 year old and a full dedication to the profession. Follow him in the next days during the event. We are sure he will bring in some highlights!
