WEST Vancouver windsurfers Nikola Girke and Zac Plavsic faced rough conditions and salty sailors at the ISAF Sailing World Championships held last month in Perth, Australia but both posted career-best finishes and are now aiming to solidify berths in the 2012 London Olympics.
Both racers went into the championships with two benchmarks to attain - good results would earn Canada spots in the Olympic race while great result - top-10 - would guarantee that it would be Girke and Plavsic filling those spots. Both racers accomplished the first benchmark while falling just short of the second. What that means is they'll now each have one more race to go - the next world championships scheduled for March in Spain - where the math will be simple: top Canadian goes to the Olympics.
Plavsic, a 2008 Olympian, finished in 12th place, his best-ever placing at a world championships.
"I was happy. It was the most consistent event of that caliber that I've sailed in my life," he told the North Shore News last week, home for a short stay before heading off to New Zealand to resume his training. "After 11 years of doing this it was like a little switch was flicked this year. It was a bit of a breakthrough year. I'm just sailing more relaxed and more open-minded and kind of listening to my gut a bit more I guess. No hesitation, right. We're travelling speeds upwards of 45 kilometres per hour so if you hesitate you're going to miss a wind shift or whatever. It was fun."
Plavsic started the 10-race event strongly, posting top-10 finishes in his first two races before making a little history in the third, becoming the first Canadian male to ever win a race at a windsurfing world championships.
"It was one of those races where everything clicked," said Plavsic, although he added that when he crossed the finish line he believed he was actually in second place. "I got to the beach and a couple of the cameras came up and they said, 'How does it feel to be the first Canadian to ever win a race at a world championships?' I said 'What do you mean I won the race?' That was pretty exciting."
Through six races Plavsic registered four top-10s and was cruising towards an Olympic berth. Races seven and eight, however, sunk his chances as he tangled with fellow Canadian David Hayes in each race, with both of them forced to do "penalty turns," a form of on-the-water policing the requires racers to stop and do 360s or 720s on the water.
Plavsic believes his fellow Canadian, who finished 31st in the event, was running a little interference to keep him from locking up the Olympic spot. Plavsic finished 17th and 13th in the two races, bouncing back on the final day with two more top-10s to finish 12th overall.
"He went kamikaze," Plavsic said. "He managed to come up and essentially create a bit of a collision and then there was a bunch of yelling." Regardless, both racers will get one last shot with winner-take-all at the World Windsurfing Championships scheduled for March 20-28 in Cadiz, Spain.
Plavsic said his goal is not to just make the Olympic Games but to win them.
"I'm not in this game to get another free bag of clothes," he said. "That's not why I'm here and that's not why I'm doing this. I'll be 29 this Sunday. I'm in this game because I want to hear our national anthem in London. . . . My goal is to do our country proud. I really want to stand on the podium."
Meanwhile Girke, an Olympian in 2004 and 2008, faced more inanimate obstacles at the worlds: broken equipment. In the first race of the event a batten - one of the horizontal strips that gives the sail shape - broke and she finished 27th. In the second race, later that same day, another batten came off, leaving her limping along to a 23rd-place showing.
The next day Perth was ravaged by a wicked thunderstorm that flooded the streets and grounded the event. When it resumed Girke's back was sliced open by the sail of a falling racer.
"Dripping blood around the race course is never a good thing here," Girke wrote in an email to the North Shore News during the event. "Doesn't help that there were two big men in grey suits seen here today near/in/under our race course . . . a.k.a. Great Whites!"
Girke managed to stay uneaten and the results did get better as she posted four top-10s in the final eight races, putting it all together in the final race to finish second.
"I was pretty damn determined to get it right - for once," she said. "The good news is that I qualified Canada for a spot at the Olympics. I placed 15th, 10th country, which has been my best worlds result yet - despite having had only one good race, one race that I felt like I was actually switched on. I am disappointed in my result despite all this, which really begs the question - what would've been my result had I actually been switched on for all 10 races."
Like Plavsic, Girke will now need to be the top Canadian in Spain to lock up an Olympic berth.
"I have come away from the regatta with a renewed list of what needs to be worked on, one that'll make my next months quite interesting and fulfilling," she said. "I absolutely know I have it in me to be a medal contender in London, it's all just fine tuning now."
