João Filipe Gaspar Rodrigues (born 2 November 1971) is a Portuguese

windsurf Windsurfing is a wind-propelled water sport that is a combination of sailing and surfing. It is also referred to as "sailboarding" and "boardsailing", and emerged in the late 1960s from the Californian aerospace and surf culture. Windsurfing gain ...

er. He competed in every

Summer Olympic Games The Summer Olympic Games, also known as the Summer Olympics or the Games of the Olympiad, is a major international multi-sport event normally held once every four years. The 1896 Summer Olympics, inaugural Games took place in 1896 in Athens, ...

from 1992 to 2016 with the best result of sixth place in 2004. Rodrigues started sailing aged nine and racing competitively at the age of eleven; in 1987 he was included to the national team. In 1995, he won his first major title at the Mistral World Championships, in

Port Elizabeth Gqeberha ( , ), formerly named Port Elizabeth, and colloquially referred to as P.E., is a major seaport and the most populous city in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. It is the seat of the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipal ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

. The same year he also graduated from a five-year course in

engineering Engineering is the practice of using natural science, mathematics, and the engineering design process to Problem solving#Engineering, solve problems within technology, increase efficiency and productivity, and improve Systems engineering, s ...

and was awarded the Nobre Guedes Olympic Medal by the Portuguese Olympic Committee. In the following two years, Rodrigues won the European Championships in the Mistral class. In May 2008, he added a third European title to his record, this time in the Neil Pryde RS:X class. Rodrigues won a silver medal in the masters fleet at the 2009 IWA Junior, Youth and Masters World championships which took place at Weymouth and Portland sailing academy which is the venue for the windsurfing and sailing at the 2012 Olympic games. In 2011 Rodrigues completed the longest non-stop ocean crossing on a windsurfing board when he sailed 160

nautical mile A nautical mile is a unit of length used in air, marine, and space navigation, and for the definition of territorial waters. Historically, it was defined as the meridian arc length corresponding to one minute ( of a degree) of latitude at t ...

s from Madeira to Selvagem Grande. He did it to celebrate his 40th birthday and attract attention to the Parque Natural de Madeira, Portugal's oldest national park. His brother Luís competed for Portugal in sailing at the 2012 World Championships.

Olympics

Despite being the most physical of sailing discipline his biggest achievement is the length of his professional windsurfing career competing in seven consecutive Worlds over a 24-year span. He was Team Portugal national flag bearer in the 2016 Summer Olympics Parade of Nations.

References

External links

* * * *
2009 IWA World Championships Report

2009 IWA World Championships Official Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rodrigues, Joao 1971 births Living people People from Santa Cruz, Madeira Madeiran sportspeople Portuguese windsurfers Olympic sailors for Portugal Portuguese male sailors (sport) Sailors at the 1992 Summer Olympics – Lechner A-390 Sailors at the 1996 Summer Olympics – Mistral One Design Sailors at the 2000 Summer Olympics – Mistral One Design Sailors at the 2004 Summer Olympics – Mistral One Design Sailors at the 2008 Summer Olympics – RS:X Sailors at the 2012 Summer Olympics – RS:X Sailors at the 2016 Summer Olympics – RS:X