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Alex Halank Ready To Compete on the Big Stage

Published Thu 04 Oct 2018

Alex Halank, one of Australia’s best young windsurfers has been pushing his racing to be selected into the Youth Olympic Games

“The Youth Olympic Games is one of my lifelong goals and I am so grateful that Australian Sailing nominated me and it is made even more special because I will be Australia’s first ever male windsurfing Youth Olympian,” Halank said.

“I’d earned a place on the Australian Youth Sailing Team for the last three years but qualifying for the Youth Olympic Games was something I was really aspiring to." Halank continued.

To pursue his dream Halank will be facing fierce competition from the world’s best. As Halank explains, the rest of the world where windsurfing iis popular is concentrated in the northern hemisphere and being school holidays they have the edge with more on-water training.

“The kids who live in the Northern hemisphere have summer holidays now and can train a lot more than we can.” Halank said.

So to hone his skills before the event and to make most of the short winter days Halank has be to super organised but most of the time he only trains on weekends.

“I get home from school at 4:15 so I have my sail already rigged and get straight out on the water whenever there is enough wind but the weather does not always cooperate and consequently most of my windsurfing is done on the weekend.”

Fortunately for Halank he has clocked up a well-stamped passport travelling the world to compete with the World Youth Championships being his most recent event.

“I have been a part of the Australian Sailing Youth Team for 3 years and represented Australia in 3 Youth Sailing Worlds which gave me lots of practice with starts and big fleet racing which is something we can’t get in Australia.” Halank Said.

Halank forms one part of the five-strong Aussie YOG sailing squad, including fellow windsurfer, Hailey Lea, mixed Nacra 15 pair of Will Cooley and Evie Haseldine, and Mani Bisschops who will represent Australia Kiteboarding. 

You can follow Alex and his teammates on the Live Stream HERE and keep up to date via our social channels


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