WHY IS SLALOM MOSTLY FILLED WITH OLDER AND MORE EXPERIENCED RACERS, ARE THESE GUYS CLINGING ONTO THE LION’S SHARE OF THE INDUSTRY MONEY AND PREVENTING THE NEW BLOOD FROM GETTING THEIR FOOT IN THE DOOR ON TOUR?
SEAN O’BRIEN
Experience is king. But you hit the nail on the head there with the older guys having a choke-hold on the industry. They do get favoured with equipment and they have access to the better fins simply by way of having more money to spend on those fins. It doesn’t mean it’s impossible for young sailors to come through, it just means you’ll find those young sailors being good in one or two specific conditions because they have the right fin combo for that – but they don’t have the other 10x $800 fins for all the other conditions.
One other thing to remember is how the industry actually works in terms of sales. Customers really do buy gear because Antoine or Bjoern wins a world title. So, even though us young guys coming through might think we can get more media coverage, branding or social media traction than those top guys, it doesn’t usually translate to actual gear sales like it might in other sports industries. So, the windsurfing industry, with the limited money it has, chooses to focus that money on having a key older rider on your brand who costs the lion’s share of their sponsorship budget rather than investing that money in some young guys who might be a better marketing potential. This will probably never change and it’s why the big names can still command a decent salary out of the brands. I don’t see this as a bad thing at all, it’s just how the game works.
The other thing to take into account is that these guys have been doing it at this level for so, so long. Even the ‘new guys’ we consider coming up the ranks like Ross Williams, Ben Van Der Steen et cetera who are popping up on the podium now have been doing it for years and years. I think it takes roughly 10 years of racing to actually get to this level as the experience and knowledge you need to win in this incredibly technical and complex sport is astounding. The young guys are slowly starting to poke through though, but until the windsurfing industry changes its business model and can adopt different streams of income, they will continue to only invest money in older and more experienced racers.