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Radis takes title, gets girl

Competitors race for the buoy, yesterday, off Penghu. PHOTO: PROTEUS SPORTS

Asia's professional windsurfing tour yesterday wrapped up its annual Taiwan event, the Penghu Pro-Am, with Australian Robbie Radis scoring a hat trick by winning the slalom, freestyle and endurance race competitions. He's also getting married.

"I'm stoked! I've really got my stuff dialed in," said the 26-year-old pro.

He takes away over US$2,000 in prize money, a sum down from last year, when the slalom title alone was worth US$5,000.

Race organizers blamed the budget cut on the faltering support of the Penghu County government, which handled the race for the first time this year. Previously, funding came directly from the central government.

Radis was one of four who registered as pros in the event. The others were Alex Mowday, an Australian who runs a windsurfing rental business in Penghu, and two Japanese sailors, Yukio Kato and Yuji Wakimoto.

Radis' only real challenge came from Mowday, who took second in all four slalom races and second overall.

Taiwan's top sailors swept the next four places in the overall rankings, consistently beating the Japanese pros. Hsin Jin-lung (幸金隆), who represented Taiwan last month at the Asian Games, took third. He was followed by Lin Zai-ho (林再和), Huang Mao-lung (黃茂隆) and Hsu Cheng-chung (許正忠) in the next three places. Then came Kato and Wakimoto in seventh and eighth. Lin Chung-ming (林忠明) and Frenchman Nicolas Guillan rounded out the top ten.

In total, there were 51 competitors from 10 countries, with most foreign competitors either residing in Taiwan or nearby in southeast Asia.

Hsu Li-chan (許麗嬋) finished atop the women's division, coming in 36th overall.

In addition to taking his second Penghu Pro-Am title

his first came three years ago

Radis is also taking away a Taiwanese bride.

Her name is Michelle Chu. They first met briefly at the Penghu Pro-Am in January 2001 when Chu, a Taipei native, was working locally for sail maker Adecco. Then came an e-mail and eventually Chu weathered a relationship with a pro windsurfer on a world tour. They'll be married in Taipei next year on March 29.

Chu currently lives with Radis in Perth, Australia, where she helps foster his other Taiwan connections, business relationships with windsurfboard-maker Kinetic and a sunglasses brand, Lava.

Both companies are based in central Taiwan, and in partnership with Chu and his parents, Radis imports and distributes their products to western Australia.

"Taiwan's been really good to me. I get my boards here. At present, the sunglasses are selling better than Oakleys. I've even imported a wife," said Radis.

The prosperity has been enough for Radis to give up the international windsurfing tour, which he said never brought him any money anyway. "After three years in Europe, I was spending more than I was making. Every time I came home the bank account was at zero," he said.

"For now, I'm just going to concentrate on the Asian tour. It won't take as long and will keep me closer to home, which is where I want to be anyway."
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