There’s a lot going on on beautiful Lake Silvaplana. And to round off the summer season in style, it was the turn of the Swiss Championships to put on a show. And for the first time, two disciplines were raced on the same weekend. A two-in-one formula, with windsurfing and kitefoiling, ensuring a non-stop show.
Text: Pauline Katz
All Swiss sailors were invited to Silvaplana for the Swiss Championships on the weekend of September 8-11, 2022. Some forty windsurfers and twenty kitefoilers answered the call. As the two future Olympic foil sports have a lot in common, Swiss Windsurfing and its very active president, Raoul Marty, tested a two-in-one formula, integrating kitefoil into the legendary Swiss windsurfing championship. Despite the lack of wind, the concept has a future, and the weekend concluded with the crowning of the first ever Swiss kitefoil champions.
Exploiting every wind
As the weekend approached, all eyes were on the wind forecasts. The weather was forecast to be capricious, with a few rainy fronts. The wind made only a few rare appearances over the weekend, but organizers were on the lookout to make sure they didn’t miss a gust. The festivities kicked off in the late afternoon of Thursday, when a light breeze of around ten knots set in. With the wind window forecast to be very brief, the two fleets were launched a few minutes apart in the race (Olympic course comprising two loops). This resulted in two rounds for the windsurfers and three rounds for the kitefoilers. On the second day, the kiters got the ball rolling in a very light wind. They made the most of it, however, and three more rounds were validated. For the windsurfers, the light wind only allowed them to complete one downwind run. On Saturday, capricious weather with rain was the order of the day. A very brief gust of wind was exploited by the organizers to validate a third round of the race for windsurfers. However, this was to be the last round of the championships, as a gusty northerly wind prevented racing on Sunday.
Germany’s Jan Vöster ahead
The winners were crowned on Sunday. The two men’s podiums were extremely close. In the kiters’ category, Jan Vöster (GER), Bruce Kessler (CH) and Ulysse Dereeper (FR) scored exactly the same number of points after six heats. It was therefore the result of the last race, which Mister Vöster won, that earned him the title of Swiss champion ahead of Bruce and Ulysse. It was the same story for the snowboarders, with a perfect tie between the first two riders. In the end, it was Sebastian Schärer, a 20-year-old Swiss, who won ahead of Richard Stauffacher (CH) and Luca Bordoni (CH). With only three runs validated out of a minimum of four, the title of Swiss champion could unfortunately not be awarded to the snowboarders. Ticino’s Elia Colombo, in the midst of his Olympic campaign to qualify Switzerland for the Paris Games, won Saturday’s heat, the only one he was able to take part in. In the women’s category, Manon Berger from Saint-Blais won the windsurfing event, ahead of Elena Sandera from Zurich and Chloé Huguenin. In the kiters’ category, the Swiss champion title went to Elena Lengwiler, the only female representative. In the U15 category, Ernestine Inversin won ahead of Luca Györvary and Raphaël Kobel. In the U19 category, Robin Zeley beat Noam Kobel and Léonard Nussbaumer. In the U21 category, Sebastian Schärer won ahead of Elena Sandera and Maximilian Räuchle. In the U18 kiters’ category, victory went to Ulysse Dereeper ahead of Gian Stragiotti and Angelo Soli.
Even if the wind didn’t really play its part in these Swiss Championships, the results were nonetheless very positive. They enabled us to experiment with the combined organization of a windsurfing and kitefoil competition. As many synergies exist, the resources required can be drastically reduced. What’s more, since the kitefoilers can compete in very little wind, a non-stop show is guaranteed. The only thing missing from this two-in-one formula is a few knots.
