A Force To Be Reckoned With

Antoine Albeau tells us about the WPT Windsurfing Pro Team

 


A few years back many groups of pros seemed to organize themselves into teams such as MPG (Maximum Performance Group), ‘The Team’ and even looser groups centered around friendship and promotion such as TWB (Team White Boarders).

But while the fizz seems to have gone out of the PR effort behind those clusters a new band has struck up an accord and won multiple world titles already.

On the books are Antoine Albeau (Starboard / NeilPryde), Cyril Moussilmani (Fanatic / North), Benoit Moussilmani (F2 / Simmer), Sylvain Moussilmani (F2 / Simmer), Julien Quentel (Starboard / NeilPryde) and Cedric Bordes (Tabou / Gaastra).

Le Chef d’Equipe, in stature at least, Albeau, the undisputed slalom racing champion and all-round windsurfing legend explains more.

"The motivation to start WPT is to for us all to work together on the tour, and for everyone to help each other out. It can be hard to stay focused and organized all the time so this way we can be sure we have support when we need it most.

So far the system’s functioned well. We started the team at the beginning of the’ 07 tour and it was perfect all year.

We’re called WPT and not something like ‘Team France’ for a few reasons. Although we are all French, It’s not the national team, as we receive nothing from the French Federation.

There is also a slight conflict of interest with another team in France, the Team ENV (Ecole National de Voile), but in our team we have the best riders!

Yeah I guess we are the best French windsurfers in Slalom, Formula and waves. There are some awesome young French competitors not in the team.

For example Julien Taboulet (F2 / Naish) was supposed to be in the team but he chose not to for his own reasons, which is cool. We couldn't put all the French guys on the team, so we took all the best ones but mainly the ones who are doing most of the events.

For sure in France I think we have some of the best rider in the world right now. I also think it’s really good for the young guns like Julien Quentel to come on the tour and learn from the more experienced guys around them.”

Merci Antoine


© PWA / Brian McDowell