In Paros, the week got off to a slow start – extremely light winds on the first 2 days left 3 possible racing days. Day 3 was lighter than forecast but it was still possible to push through a couple of heats and get the ball rolling for an action packed final 2 days. In the Men’s Division, Jordy Vonk started and finished the event with two bullets – giving him 4 out of 7 race wins and a perfect points score, discarding all his other scores. Full fleet racing in the women’s meant it was straight finals and no room for errors. Jenna Gibson was dominant from start to finish winning 10 out of 13 races, with 2^nd placed Sarah Jackson picking up the other 3 wins. With conditions ranging from light wind 9.0 all the way down to full power 5.0, both Jordy and Jenna showed consistency across all conditions to take their victories.

The story of Alacati starts long before the event started however – actually way back in 2011. This was the year that Cagla Kubat and Jimmy Diaz opened the Cagla Kubat Windsurfing Academy – a surf school aimed at the local kids and getting them into racing. 11 years down the line and this small surf school in Alacati has developed into a World Champion factory! 46 kids from the Academy competed in the Youth and Junior World Championships, with 16 finishing on the podium across the respective age groups!

Speaking to Jimmy and Cagla about the Academy, it’s clear they are incredibly passionate about what they are doing in developing the next crop of slalom windsurfers and giving kids the opportunity to get into the sport in an accessible way. Starting at the bottom, children as young as 5 years old can join in the beginner sessions and as they progress, they move into the intermediate and advanced groups where all of the equipment is provided. From here, the youngest kids go into the Junior Performance Academy – these are 8 to 11 year olds who are in the harness, footstraps and gybing and even at this age, the team are training 4 times a week! Then you have the Youth Performance Programme, also training 4 times per week in the summer, plus all through the winter, where they learn more detail about racing and technique. At this point as well, the athletes are encouraged and supported in buying their own equipment so that they can start to learn to trim and tune it and take responsibility for looking after it.

The key with the academy is the way it is setup though to make sure everyone is involved in the system. The kids in the Performance Programme are down there almost every day and if they aren’t training themselves, they are coaching the younger athletes. Even at the highest level – Elif Ercan, 4 x Junior World Champion, is one of the key coaches in the junior programme. This system instils discipline and commitment from a young age, but also gives the older athletes responsibility for the development of the kids coming up behind them. Further, by making the older athletes coach the younger ones, it also makes the older athletes more analytical of their own sailing as they are having to think deeply about the skills and not just repeat what they are told. Finally, by having the mix of all the athletes across the academy, it creates a family feeling and a real camaraderie between the kids.

The final piece in the academy’s success is Jimmy and Cagla’s dedication to bringing local, national and international events to their doorstep. To develop World Class athletes they need to be exposed to World Class events and thus bringing the events to the kids through IFCA and PWA Junior Events makes it more accessible for the local kids to be exposed to this level of racing.

The dedication of Cagla and Jimmy is incredible and their passion for the sport is unmatched when it comes to developing the next crop of Slalom World Champions. The sport needs more people like them and we are very grateful for what they are doing! Taking 16 podiums in the IFCA Junior, Youth and Masters World Championships really speaks for the success of the academy and what they are doing – congratulations guys and thank you!