Techno 293 OD Worlds - A Championship to remember!

by Benoit Tréguilly on 7 Aug 2010 Techno 293 OD World Championships 2010 ended Saturday in Martigues, south of France,once the wind finally decided to calm down, allowing two more rounds to be run in each of the five categories.

The favourites for honours, who had established themselves a significant lead in the previous days of big winds, took advantage of the last day to confirm their potential, meaning that in the girls’ competitions, Italian Marta Maggetti in the Under 15 section, and Israeli Neomi Cohen in the Under 17 section, took the top podium spots.

Meanwhile, in the boys’ competitions, where things had been very tight all week, nowhere more so than in the Under 17 class, the all-French battle between Gaël Cousin and Maxime Labat saw Cousin finally win out. They finished ahead of three racers, Mich Cheng Chun Leung from Hong Kong, Kieran Martin from England and Dutch contender Kiiran Badloe.

The Under 15 section was led home by the impressive young Russian Andrey Zagaynov, ahead of the Israeli Tomer Blum and the Italian Michel Cittadini. Martigues produced challenging conditions for all - competitors, coaches and race committee! The unexpected weather pattern produced a very wide range of winds - very light to very strong mistral!

The Techno 293 OD World Championships 2010 drew to its beautiful conclusion with some excellent young winners, who we may well see at the top of the Olympic rankings in the next few years. And the Techno 293 OD class itself came away boosted by a week of superb international competition, with more than 360 competitors from four continents attending, which is the largest windsurfing championships in recent memory!

It was particularly satisfying to see an increase in both age divisions, boys and girls, in the Techno 293 Championship - the class supported by all windsurfing classes for the junior (under 17) development pathway. This event is also marked by increased success for Eastern and Asian countries, which look like they’re going to be a force to be reckoned with in the years to come.

The venue for this event next year, San Francisco, USA, is sure to attract a large number of competitors in both classes. BIC Sport have extended their already generous support of the T293 class by committing to supply 150 charter boards and rigs to the USA event.

For more information, please go to: www.bicsport.com or www.techno293.org