There’s now just 4 days go before the final clash of the 2017 season, which will take place on the stunning island of New Caledonia - located in the South Pacific - with the Airwaves Noumea Dream Cup which runs between the 21st-26th November.

With the season finale edging ever closer we caught up with current PWA Slalom World Tour leaders Antoine Albeau (RRD / NeilPryde) - who is looking to capture a 24th world title - and Sarah-Quita Offringa (Starboard / NeilPryde / Maui Ultra Fins) - for whom it was thought was already the 2014 PWA Women’s Slalom World Champion, however, due to a clerical error in which the new progressive scoring system introduced this season, which sees events with 4 or more races completed awarded greater points than those with 3 or less, was not taken into account, which mathematically means Delphine Cousin Questel (Starboard / S2Maui) can still will the world title. But only if 4 or more races are completed and the former two-time world champion wins the event, while Offringa must finish outside of the top 3. In the event of under 3 races Offringa cannot be beaten. 

Sarah-Quita Offringa (Starboard / NeilPryde  / Maui Ultra Fins), who is en route to Noumea: “On my way to NC as I’m writing this!

The mistake doesn’t bother me so much. If according to the rules it isn’t over then it’s fair that it all still goes down in New Caledonia.

It’s just a bit unfortunate because I needed to change my schedule and re-book tickets which was a hassle. 

It’s not the preparation I would have liked to have had for this contest, but there’s nothing we can do about that now.

But then again maybe it was a good thing to find out so late, because I had such an amazing freestyle trip to Brazil which I wouldn’t have done if I knew earlier I had to go to New Cal. My biggest issue was that I lost my starting watch somewhere between Denmark and Sylt. 

How was I gonna nail my starts !? Well that’s solved now thanks to Coach Ethan. 

So, now that I have a watch I can focus on the rest of the race :) 

Looking forward to some solid racing in New Cal!”

Antoine Albeau: “I came to NC 2 weeks before the event to train well and get ready, so I hope that the conditions will be good and we will have fair racing, I like the place here. We’ve been here twice already with the PWA and the wind conditions were super good. This time it looks like the wind might be lighter but we will see. In terms of the title race I’m just concentrating at performing well at the event and we will see.”

We’ll have a full breakdown of the world title race scenarios in the event preview which will be released on Monday. Make sure you tune into www.pwaworldtour.com between the 21st-26th November to follow all of the pulsating action as it happens with Ben Proffitt (Simmer / Simmer Sails) to guide you through all of the racing via the PWA live stream.

You can see the latest forecast for New Caledonia via WindGuru