Windsurf · Pro era & decline
1996
The Mistral One Design goes to the Olympics
At Atlanta, sailed off Savannah, the Mistral One Design becomes the Olympic board; Nikos Kaklamanakis and Lee Lai-Shan win gold.
Mistral One Design, 372 cm, side view · profile measured from a line drawing by Barbetorte (Wikimedia Commons)
For the 1996 Games of Atlanta the windsurfers moved to a new board: the Mistral One Design, designed by Ernstfried Prade in 1989. It was 3.72 metres long and 0.63 metres wide, with a volume of 235 litres and a 7.4 square metre sail. It stayed the Olympic board for three Games: Atlanta, Sydney 2000 and Athens 2004.
The racing took place from 23 to 29 July 1996 on Wassaw Sound, off Savannah in Georgia. Nikos Kaklamanakis of Greece won the men’s event, ahead of Carlos Espínola of Argentina and Gal Fridman of Israel.
In the women’s event Lee Lai-Shan won the first Olympic medal Hong Kong had ever won, ahead of Barbara Kendall of New Zealand and Alessandra Sensini of Italy. Twenty years after he helped found Mistral, Prade’s board was the one the world’s best raced on.