With record attendance and world class results in the races, this years 10th anniversary WhiteAir Extreme Sports Festival was the best yet, Nigel Howell told us at the end of the event.
With nine film crews (and VentnorBlog) there, it was certainly well covered in the media.
This year the RAF were the main sponsors and with their target logo splashed around everywhere, it could’ve been mistaken for a Mod convention — except sharp suits were most definitely replaced with baggy jeans and cool Ts.
The weather was pretty varied over the four days, with lots of swell early on, making things interesting for the Thundercat racing on Saturday, but Sunday’s blue skies and calm water had the racers wishing for more wind and larger waves.
Wandering around the site watching the amazing talents of the skaters and mountainboarders really inspired me to try it out, but at risk of injuring myself, I put it off yet another year.
However, more than 500 people signed up over the four days for the ‘Have A Go’ sessions, trying out surfing, kitesurfing, mountainboarding, skateboarding, parkour, thundercats and jetskis. It was the most successful so far and has hopefully given islanders a taste for the sports they sampled.
Our little one had a go at the skateboarding and now wants a board for Christmas, and Simon and Dave took mountainboards out up the hill (and down again) for an hour or so. They weren’t doing somersaults, but made it look pretty easy to pick up, attempting a couple of the ramps and manoeuvring themselves around oncoming pedestrians.
WightTrash and Moreys sponsored the half pipe and I spotted John Cattle filming on the Sunday, so expect to see some footage from the event sometime in the future.
Listen to a quick interview with David Webber (Thundercat Extraordinaire), by clicking on the right hand icon below. [audio:http://otw-audio.s3.amazonaws.com/WhiteAir2006-ThunderCats-VentnorBlog.mp3]
There’s also a great video roundup of the event filmed by Raya/ITV.
