The 4th IFCA Judging Seminar is taking place in Roses, Spain from the 10th through the 12th of April 2015. With several years of history and many participants, the judging seminar has been gaining more and more recognition. We spoke to EFPT race director and head-judge Tom Hartmann, who has been an active competitor for many years before his career ‘on the other side’ and who is now one of the main lecturers at the clinic. We asked about the content, daily schedules and who could or should attend it.

EFPT: Can you give us the key information about the Judging Clinic?

Tom: The Judging Clinic was introduced in 2010 for the first time with the goal to develop a certain standard of race management and freestyle judging that national and international windsurf events should require. We want to spread knowledge on how freestyle competitions should be organised.

EFPT: Who can/should attend it?

Tom: Basically everybody interested in competitive freestyle windsurfing can join. In the past clinics we had different participants, some wanted to become offical judges at national and international competitions. Others were members or officals of sailing clubs, race committees or event organisers who wanted to know how to properly organise a freestyle competition. We also had riders joining the clinics to get a better inside view on how the judging is working to improve their competition sailing.

EFPT: Who are the organisers and who is doing the lectures?

Tom: The clinic is organised together by the European Freestyle Pro Tour (EFPT) and International Funboard Class Association (IFCA). The lectures are mainly held by myself (Race director and headjudge EFPT), supported by Ruben Petrisie (IFCA freestyle representative) and Bruno de Wannemaker (IFCA President) who is our specialist on organisational structure of the windsurfing sport.

EFPT: Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Tom: I have been competing myself as a professional athlete in freestyle and wave windsurfing on EFPT and PWA for nearly 10 years and since 2009 I am the race director and headjudge of the EFPT and international judge on the PWA world tour.

EFPT: What is the content of the clinic? Can you talk us through a daily schedule?

Tom: The clinic contains race management (race crew, event setup, elimination system, …) freestyle judging (rules, contest formats, moves, criteria, …), organisation/structure of windsurf sport and a practical part. The 3 days are split in different sessions. We meet in the morning after breakfast, do two teaching sessions in the morning, then lunch break together and another two sessions in the afternoon. We have some some evening program organised with locals giving a tour on the region and we have dinner together. On sunday there is the exam in the morning and the clinic ends at noon, so everybody has enough time to get home before the end of the weekend.

EFPT: How does the exam work and what qualifications does the certificate give you?

Tom: The exam consists of different parts according to the content of the clinic: race management, freestyle judging, moves and a practical part. Depending on the result of the exam the participants get certified as national or international IFCA/EFPT freestyle judge. This offical certificate should profile the person to hold knowledge of running a competition himself on this standard and to work as an offical freestyle judge. Internationally licenced events usually always require a certain number of offical judges in their race crew and of course getting a really good freestyle judge requires a lot of training on the job.

If this is of interest to you and you would love to learn more about professional freestyle windsurfing judging and event organisation make sure to contact Ruben at: info@rubenpetrisie.com and secure your place!