We are super excited to welcome a new freestyler on the Starboard Dream Team: Meiky Wieczorek. Meiky is from Munich, Germany and he is currently living at Lago di Garda. He has been freestyling for more than 15 years and he is pushing the limits regardless of the temperature, conditions and weather. During the winter you can find him at the famous Busparkplatz in Malcesine and in summer he spends a few months in Karpathos, Greece. You can see his hard work and determination in his extraordinary level and style. Meiky even recently joined the “Double Air Culo Club”! Read more below as we asked him a few questions about his plans to return to competition, what advice he would give to the younger generation and more.
Will we see your competition come back this year?
“I am planning to join some FPT events in case there is wind. Let’s hope it will be the case :)”
How it feels to join the “Double Air Culo Club” and how long it took you to land it?
“One of the best feelings ever. I never had to fight so hard to get a move done. From the first try to the first landed one passed 7 months with many ups and downs. The Double Air Culo has existed for quite some time now but still, you don’t see it super often and still not many can do it super safe. It was not always easy to push myself during cold winter days but I forced myself to try and try and try and it paid off. I am far away from having it safe but it’s getting better and better and I landed already few perfect ones.”
Why should a young person choose to learn windsurfing over other water sports?
“When you learn a freestyle move in windsurfing you can be really proud of yourself as it takes a lot of practice and dedication. Wingfoilers are jumping 360s and stuff like that after a few weeks or months of wingfoiling so it’s worth much less.”
What are usually riders underestimating when starting to freestyle?
“The time and energy you have to invest and the time it takes to improve. It’s a very very slow process and you need to invest a lot to reach your goals. You will be faced with many ups and downs and the sport is really testing your frustration tolerance haha but the feelings you get when conquering a new move are priceless and not comparable with anything else.”
Do you have any advice for young starting freestyles who would like to reach your level?
“Use light-wind days to practice. Before I started to learn proper freestyle moves I had spent already hundreds of hours playing around in winds around 10 knots. Going backwind, clew-first, ducking the sail, etc. Like this, you develop so much board and sail feeling from which you will benefit when starting to practice the freestyle moves in stronger wind while planning. For example, the sail duck for Switch Kono I learned in only a few days as I already ducked the sail thousands of times before in light wind. Therefore, It was not hard for me to do it while planning and in stronger wind.”
Meiky is using the Starboard iGNiTE 93L. You can follow Meiky’s freestyle journey on his Instagram and YouTube.
Photo Credit: Fabrizio Prandini
