Issue date
Aaron McIntosh has worn a series of different hats throughout his career, as a sailor, coach and advocate. As an athlete, he won three windsurfing world titles in the 1990s and went on to win bronze at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. For the last decade he’s been the windsurfing coach with the Dutch national team and achieved incredible success, delivering multiple world and Olympic titles. More latterly, Aaron has been an advocate for windfoiling, pushing for the class to replace the RS:X on the Olympic programme, which was confirmed late last year for the 2024 Paris Olympics. We talk to Aaron about his journey to the top as an athlete, his relationship with Bruce Kendall and his Olympic experiences and then his reinvention as a top coach. We also delve into why someone who coached the world’s top two RS:X windsurfers would push so vigorously to see that class dropped in favour of windfoiling, and what he thinks the change could mean to the New Zealand windsurfing scene which was once at the top of the world but has been largely dormant for the best part of the last decade.
