The 25 years old Swiss sailor, Loick Spicher (RRD/RRD), who has been a regular on tour in the past years and who has always been one to watch out for as an opponent, made his first EFPT podium at the EFPT Sardinia in the beginning of June. Loick caused some real upsets amongst the title contenders, when he secured the second place in this four star event. He currently holds the 4^th place in the EFPTs overall ranking and is ready to defend his position in the upcoming events on the Canary Islands. We talked to him about where it all began, his life apart from windsurfing, best memories, role models, favorite people to sail with and why every freestyler should enter the EFPT.

EFPT: Loick where did you grow up and where did you first get connected with windsurfing?

Loick: I grew up in the surroundings of Fribourg, Switzerland. My father was a passionate windsurfer and we drove every summer for a couple of weeks with our camping car to Paros, Greece. That is where I windsurfed for the first times.

EFPT: What is your homespot?

Loick: There are a couple of Lakes around my home like the lake of: Murten, Biel, Neuenburg and Gruyère. Depending on the wind conditions and available time I would go sail to one of these.

EFPT: Whenever you are at an event abroad it seems like you speak EVERY language. How many languages do you speak and how come?

Loick: Haha. My mother tongue is French as my mum is from the French part of Switzerland but I grew up also learning Swiss German thanks to my father. I did most of my school time in German. More to this I had English classes and could improve it while travelling. I then chose Spanish as a complementary skill and had the chance to travel every year to the Canary Islands and a couple of times to Venezuela. In addition, I learned Portuguese after spending a couple of months for seven consecutive winters in Brazil. So yeah, this makes it five languages and hopefully a 6^th soon, if I continue working on my Italian :-).

EFPT: How does your life look apart from windsurfing?

Loick: I started an economics degree at the university of Fribourg in September 2017. Luckily there are no mandatory courses apart of two exam weeks every half year, which allows me to be quite flexible and to study on my own wherever I am. When I was not studying or sailing I have been working in several temporary jobs as Scaffolder on events and festivals all around Switzerland, working as a host at the Geneva Car Show and other little jobs. During my off-water time I also train a lot in gyms and outdoors. Whenever there is a bit of time left in-between all that, I love to hang out with my family and friends, to play any kinds of sports and to enjoy life.

EFPT: Favorite person on tour?

Loick: I think everybody on tour is cool!

EFPT: Role model?

Loick: Gollito Estredo – biggest talent, strongest competitor, stylish and humble

Kiri Thode – for his incredible technique, flow and skills

EFPT: Live scoring yes or no?

Loick: Definitely YES – It brought so much more transparency to every end results and especially gave a clear guidelines to riders on how you have to perform to score maximum points. Moreover, it makes it way more interesting for spectators and competitors to follow the heats.

EFPT: Best memory on tour?

Loick: There were plenty of good moments but competing-wise I think the EFPT Brouwersdam back in 2016 was one of the strongest moments for me. The wind was awesome, I was feeling super confident and sailing pretty solid.

EFPT: How did it feel to make the first international podium in Sardinia?

Loick: Amazing! I was very happy to have made it and felt relieved from any kind of pressure. Also I felt very thankful because I knew that I would never have made it so far, if it was not for the continuous support of many sponsors and people during the last couple of years!

EFPT: Favorite places to sail?

Loick: Maceio, Bonaire, Blue Lagoon and Risco del Paso on a good day

EFPT: Favorite person to sail with?

Loick: Jeremy Plüss

EFPT: Favorite set up?

Loick: 4.1 RRD Stylepro, 91l RRD Twintip 2018 and Lagoa Fins Fin-Up 20

EFPT: Anything you want to say to freestyle rookies who want to join the tour, but are a bit scared to do so?

Loick: I think that nowadays there are not enough ‘low’ level freestyle competitions in Europe. Therefore, whenever you have the opportunity to come to an EFPT event, do it! All the riders on tour love to see young motivated guys joining the contests no matter how high your level is. You will be very welcome, have a great time among the pros and have the opportunity to gather high level experience. In my case, every single EFPT event that I attended brought me valuable experience and served each time as a huge motivation boost that kept me training harder and harder. See it as a training and don’t be afraid, almost all the successful riders had to go through it as well!

EFPT: Who are your picks for the top three in the EFPT this year? PWA top three?

Loick: Difficult to say – on the EFPT I believe the actual top three Tonky, Giovanni and Steven are good candidates to keep the top three positions. However, the guys just behind like Riccardo, Mattia, Julian, myself and more riders will definitely challenge them until the very last.

The PWA Top 3 will be even a tougher one! My bet would be that Gollito and Amado will stay in there. Then Jacopo, Yentel and Steven are in my opinion, the other strongest contenders for a podium place. I also believe there may be interesting surprises happening this year, as everyone keeps pushing really hard.

EFPT: What about the next tour stops? Fuerteventura and Lanzarote? What are your thoughts on that?

Loick: I am currently on my way to Fuerteventura and can’t wait to be sailing there again. The events on the Canaries have always been my favourite of the season as this place delivers decent wind for big action.

EFPT: Goals for this year?

Loick: Enjoy every day as much as possible, win lots of heats and finish on a top five EFPT overall position.