Courtesy of: The Morning News
By: Rosalie Klein
Since the age of only 15, Aruban Sarah Quita Offringa has been making windsurfing history in freestyle and slalom on the PWA world tour. Setting historic records as the youngest woman to win gold, win a freestyle championship, and also to hold duel titles in 2011, Women’s World Champion in both Freestyle and Slalom divisions, she again successfully defended her Freestyle title this year. On Saturday, September 15, she was crowned the PWA Women’s World Champion Freestyle 2013 at the close of the tournament in Brouwersdam, Netherlands. This year was the first time in 15 years that Brouwersdam has hosted a PWA World Cup event, which was fortuitous for Sarah Quita, enabling her to immediately return to University of Utrecht, Uithof, to complete her studies.
This is the sixth consecutive year Sarah Quita has claimed the title, with top wins at Fuerteventura, Spain in July, then clinching it this weekend in Holland. Aruba’s Minister of Public Health & Sports, Richard Visser, just happened to be in Holland during the week of the event, and so traveled to Brouwersdam to proudly present her with her trophy. She also took the top spot in Women’s Slalom at the Pegasus Airline PWA World Cup in Alecate, Turkey, but was unable to compete sufficiently to win the world champion title in that division, as she elected instead to dedicate her time to completing her education.
Sarah Quita began classes on Monday, where she is finishing up a few required courses to obtain her Bachelor’s Degree in Science and Innovation Management. She has already completed her thesis, which was approved, but she is making up for required credits she missed when taking off in 2011 to dedicated her time to the PWA World Championship circuit.
Sarah Quita remains undefeated in every heat in which she has competed since she first claimed the title of PWA Women’s World Champion Freestyle in 2008.
The PWA reports that “Brouwerdam produced a superb bland of conditions for the elite of the freestyle world. Anything from storm force winds with heavy rain, to glorious evening light with 20 knots and perfect flat water, greeted the competitors over the course of the week.”
Sarah Quita was extremely pleased that her very good friend Kiri Thode of Bonaire, a regular at the Aruba Hi-Winds event in July, won the top spot in men’s freestyle, and has a good shot at the world title with one more tournament win. She expressed she would find it very gratifying for them to share this year’s championship, as they have shared other titles in the past, such as the 2006 Prokids Bonaire, 2011 PWA freestyle Vietnam 2011 PWA freestyle Bonaire.
