Blue sea, blue sky, blue-blooded visitors: prince Felipe and princess Letizia of Spain will chair the world championship races of the Formula Windsurfing from September 13th to 19th 2009 at the Costa Blanca as honorary presidents. The Madrilenian royal family is known for their water sports athleticism and gratefully accepted an invitation of the mayor of the coastal town Santa Pola that will host the event.
The region is making great progress in holding major sporting events. After the discovery of the grand boulevards of Valencia by the Formula 1 and the sailor’s famous America’s Cup taking place on the seaside of the metropolitan city, now an hour’s drive away, in Santa Pola near Alicante, with the world championships of the Formula Windsurfing another meaningful aquatic sport event is carried out in the Comunidad Valenciana.
Formula Windsurfing is a Racing competition in which precise reglementations of the equipment like in the Formula 1 guarantee equal opportunities. Close neck-and-neck races and daring overtaking manouevres raise the thrill on a figure-eight course which is marked by buoys. Santa Pola by the way has already been on the Formula calendar once. The Polish Agnieszka Pietrasik and Julien Quintel from France won the European Champions there in 2007.
Now the Racing world champion will be determined at the Mediterranean in the following year. The Spanish royal house will, represented through the former news presenter Letizia and crown prince Felipe, preside the event. Vicente Germán Martínez, president of the Santa Pola surf club, interprets this as further proof “that windsurfing is more and more becoming a major sport”. For the Asturian princes, the world championship is also an opportunity to underline their intuition for social trends and cultivate their active, youthful image.
The popularity of the Moreno twins, the success of Victor Fernandez in Waves and Antxon Otaegui in Freestyle along with the prestigious World Cup competitions on the Canary Islands also contribute its share to fuel the Spaniards enthusiasm for windsurfing.
Links
The news on the acceptance of the royal princes couple on informacion.es:
The Website of the Spanish coastal town Santa Pola:
The Formula Windsurfing on the World Wide Web:
http://www.formulawindsurfing.org
News and interesting facts about the Spanish royal house:
http://www.casareal.es/index-iden-idweb.html
Aquatic sport in the Comunidad Valenciana:
