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Date of Birth: May 31st, 1987
Place of Birth: Toronto, Canada
Nationality: Canadian and Polish
Sail number: CAN 9
Height: 173cm
Weight: 71kgs
Education: BSc Management - University of London
Current sponsors: Sailworks, Starboard, Dakine, Streamlined, Camaro Wetsuits, Peppers Eyeware, Bondic, Makani Fins, Nolimitz
Windsurfing since: 1997
Best results:
- Canadian Windsurfing Champion
- 2010 Cabarete Classic Freestyle Champion
- 4th place 2010 Lanzarote PWA World Cup
- 6th place 2010 PWA World Tour Overall Freestyle World Ranking
- 10th place 2009 PWA World Tour Overall Freestyle World Ranking
- 2013 US Nationals Freestyle Champion
- 2015 US Nationals Freestyle Champion
- 2015 US Nationals Slalom 3rd place
- 7th place 2015 PWA Fuerteventura World Cup
- 4th place 2015 European Freestyle Pro Tour Lanzarote
Favourite beaches: Cape Town, South Africa. Jericoacoara, Brazil. Nitinat Lake, Canada.
Other hobbies: Skiing, Mountain Biking, Traveling, Languages
Speaks: English, French, Polish, Spanish, Portuguese
First steps
Phil’s first time windsurfing was in 1995 on a family trip to Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. His mother sowed a sail for him and his two brothers out of tarp, rigged it on a kid’s mast and boom, and hooked it up to an original windsurfer.
Two years later Phil spent 3 weeks camping at Killbear Provincial Park, on Georgian Bay. He sailed almost every day constantly asking his mother and father to help him with his tacks or jibes. He was hooked.
Every year since then Phil’s summers were spent windsurfing on Georgian Bay. During school he would convince his father the forecast said it would be windy so that he could drive them to the lake to go windsurfing.
Competitive drive
His windsurfing slowly improved, and in 2002 he competed at the Canadian Championships and was the best junior at the event. Later that summer he competed in France at the Formula Experience European Championships and placed 14th.
In 2003 Phil continued racing. Again he won top honours at the Canadian Championships as a youth and went on to compete at the FE European Championships in Portugal taking 6th place.
Over the next year his interests shifted from racing to freestyle. He learnt to Vulcan and decided to completely drop racing and concentrate on freestyle from then on. The following summer after finishing high school, Phil and his brothers along with two friends went on a road trip across the country to the West coast to sail at one of Canada’s best spots, Nitinat Lake and later on in Hood River and on the Oregon Coast. Phil learnt to loop and spock that summer and after competing at the Canadian Championships and placing 6th in the mens division went to study Management at the University of Toronto.
As soon as his last exam for the year was over in May 2006, Phil left for a year long trip to practice his freestyle in Brazil and Venezuela with his goal being to compete at his first PWA competition in Lanzarote in 2007.
World Tour
The 2007 Costa Teguise PWA Grand Slam was Phil’s first PWA competition and his first heat was against the 2007 World Champion Ricardo Campello. After losing this first heat Phil managed to come back in the following eliminations to finish his first event in 17th place.
Phil continued the 2007 PWA World Tour and finished 17th for the year. It was a great start, but even with some improved results the following year, Phil’s ranking still didn’t change and he finished ranked 17th for the 2nd year straight.
After some dedicated training over the winter months Phil returned to the 2009 PWA World Tour hungry for better results, and it showed as he was ranked 8th going into the final event of the year: the PWA Super Grand Slam in Sylt, Germany. Bad luck struck as Phil dislocated his shoulder during his first heat of the competition, leaving him on the sidelines for the remainder of the event, and off the water for a month. His ranking dropped and he finished the 2009 World Tour in 10th.
After recovering from his injury, Phil was motivated to get back on the water and windsurf as much as he could. His 2010 competitive year started poorly with a tied 17th place finish at the first event of the year in Podersdorf, Austria, but Phil quickly followed up with a career best 4th place at the Lanzarote PWA World Cup. Phil continued sailing well that summer and finished ranked 6th on the PWA 2010 World Rankings.
Travel
Windsurfing has taken Phil to many corners of the world. He competed in Canada, France, United States, Portugal, Venezuela, Spain, Germany, Austria, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Vietnam and the Dominican Republic.
In his windsurfing travels Phil also visited Mexico, Colombia, South Africa,Brazil and Egypt.
Phil’s articles about his travels have been published in many international magazines including, Windsport (Canada), Windsurfing (USA), Boards (UK), Windsurf (UK), PlancheMag (France), Wind (France), Surf (Germany), Windsurfing Journal (Germany), Funboard (Italy), Motion (Holland), Surf (Holland), Surf A Vela (Spain) and Fuerza 7 (Spain).
The Future
Phil plans to continue windsurfing and traveling for many years to come. Amongst his many goals he wishes to improve his sailing, travel to new places and share the stoke of windsurfing and travel with everyone around him.