Lanzarote Foil Challenge: Lena Erdil promotes marine conservation: windsurfing world champion passes extreme challenge

It was a very special kind of challenge: two-time IFC windsurfing world champion Lena Erdil from Kiel circumnavigated the Canary Island of Lanzarote on her foil racing board in sometimes brutal conditions. After 203 kilometres, three short breaks and a fight with a fishing net in which her foil got caught, the top foiler from the German Sailing Team crossed the finish line after 9 hours and 20 minutes, exhausted but happy. Click here for the film about her adventure, which took place on 6 February and is now available as a Documentation (please click!) was published.

Lena Erdil's goal during her nine-and-a-half-hour extreme mission: to raise awareness of plastic waste in the oceans together with partner CleanHub - and to do something about it. For every kilometre surfed by the ambitious athlete from the German Sailing Team, CleanHub collects 2.5 kilograms of plastic waste on beaches in the name of its "flying" ocean ambassador to prevent it from entering the sea. Lena Erdil's participation in the Lanzarote Foil Challenge collected more than half a tonne of plastic waste, which CleanHub is now collecting in her name.

32-year-old Lena Erdil had to fight her way through her foil marathon, initially in calm conditions, but later also in stormy winds of up to 40 knots. "When my foil got caught in a fishing net and it took me ten minutes to free myself again, I had to think about all the sea creatures that are caught in nets like me." More than eleven million tonnes of plastic waste end up in the world's oceans every year and cause immense damage.

For professional surfer and marketing manager Lena Erdil, the Lanzarote Foil Challenge was an excursion of the heart on her way to the 2024 Olympic Games. As a member of the German Sailing Team's perspective squad, the windsurfer, who competes for the Norddeutscher Regatta Verein, is aiming to compete in the 2024 Olympic premiere of the iQ-Foiler off Marseille. She is currently being coached by Ukrainian-born Russian coach Olga Maslivets. Erdil's male counterpart in the German Sailing Team is iQ-Foiler Sebastian Kördel, who finished fourth in the 2021 World Championships. Their sport was newly included in the Olympic programme and includes Ilca 7 (single-handed dinghy men, ex-Laser Standard), Ilca 6 (single-handed dinghy women, ex-Laser Radial), 49er (skiff men), 49erFX (skiff women), 470 mixed (double-handed dinghy), Nacra 17 (mixed multihull) and kiteboarding for women and men are among the ten Olympic sailing disciplines in which Olympic medals will be contested under the sailing umbrella in France in just over two years' time.