João Rodrigues (sailor)

This name uses Portuguese naming customs. The first or maternal family name is Gaspar and the second or paternal family name is Rodrigues.
João Rodrigues

Rodrigues at the 2016 Olympics
Personal information
Born (1971-11-02) 2 November 1971
Santa Cruz, Madeira[1]
Height 179 cm (5 ft 10 in)[2]
Weight 73 kg (161 lb)
Sport
Sport Windsurfing
Club Centro de Treino de Mar[3]

João Filipe Gaspar Rodrigues (born 2 November 1971) is a Portuguese windsurfer. He competed in every Summer Olympic Games from 1992 to 2016 with the best result of sixth place in 2004.[1] He was the flag bearer for Portugal during the 2016 Summer Olympics Parade of Nations.[4]

Rodrigues started sailing aged nine and racing competitively at the age of eleven; in 1987 he was included to the national team.[3] In 1995, he won his first major title at the Mistral World Championships, in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. The same year he also graduated from a five-year course in engineering and was awarded the Nobre Guedes Olympic Medal by the Portuguese Olympic Committee.[3] 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 miles 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 brothers Luis competed for Portugal in sailing at the 2012 World Championships.[3]

References

  1. 1 2 João Rodrigues. sports-reference.com
  2. "Joao Rodrigues". Rio 2016. Retrieved 2016-08-27.
  3. 1 2 3 4 João Rodrigues. nbcolympics.com
  4. "The Flagbearers for the Rio 2016 Opening Ceremony". 2016-08-16. Retrieved 2016-08-27.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to João Rodrigues (sailor).
Olympic Games
Preceded by
Telma Monteiro
Flagbearer for  Portugal
Rio de Janeiro 2016
Succeeded by
Incumbent


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