Bruce Kendall MBE was the First New Zealander to gain Olympic Gold in the Windsurfing class. Coach and mentor he helped carve the pathway for others such as Barbara Kendall, Aaron MacIntosh and Tom Ashley who all, went onto success in the Olympic arena for Windsurfing.
Windsurfing was given a major boost in the public awareness by Bruces Gold Medal at the Olympic games in Pusan, Korea. During 1988 Bruce also won the Hong Kong Open Champs and the Australian Div II Nationals.
Not only has he inspired New Zealanders but also many International Sailors, having many many friends from all parts of the globe. Where he spends most of the year as a successful and popular Olympic Coach.
Bruce is passionate on the history of Windsurfing and its ongoing success and development in the Olympic arena for New Zealand and Internationally.
Bruce has recently been active in working with sporting organizations and companies to get New Zealand Windsurfing back to a level so New Zealand can be competitive at an international level in the future.
Read on, for the Brief of Bruce - competitor at the Olympic Games
Pre Olympics - The Early Years
Coming soon....
1984 Olympics
Bruce Kendall and Scott Steel pictured here sailing the windgliders back to the beach after the last race for the Olympic Games 1984
Bruce Kendall chose the windsurfing class to try and represent New Zealand at the Olympics at the age of 16. Together with his friends Grant Beck and Steve Macris, created the first ever NZ Olympic windsurfing team. Unable to afford to travel to the hub of windsurfing in Europe, they travelled USA together living an extremely sparten existence. Kendall possessed extraordinary determination and a strong, wiry frame that belied a lack of size compared to most rivals. The Kiwi team helped each other to climb the international rankings where in 1983 Kendall finished 7th at the world Championships to qualify the first ever New Zealand windsurfer to go to the Olympic games. Kendall won the 1984 New Zealand Olympic Trials gaining the Olympic berth at the age of 19.
The 1984 Olympics held the inaugural Olympic sailboarding competition. The event was sailed at Long Beach between the oil Islands on the Windglider. During the 5th race, Kendall was unfortunate to be run over from behind by a French sailor and due to lack of a reliable witness, Kendall was disqualified from that race. This cost him the Silver medal to Scott Steel from the USA. Kendall won the Bronze with 46.4 points Steel the Silver on 46 points and Dutchman Stephan van den Berg was a comfortable winner of the gold medal with 27.7 points.
Kendall would do even better at the next Olympics. His sister, Barbara, would produce New Zealand’s only gold medal in any sport at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona.
1988 Olympics
A First for the Sailors
Bruce on the Podium after gaining Gold for New Zealand in 1988
Bruce Kendall knew he was capable of winning the Windsurfing Gold medal on the Lechner. The 1988 Olympic games sailed off Pusan Korea still has the record of being the windiest and roughest Olympics ever, a record which is unlikely to fall in the foreseeable future.
From day 2 Kendall led the event all the way and won the event with one day to spare narrowly beating Tornado silver medallists Rex Sellers and Chris Timms to become the first New Zealand sailor to become a double Olympic medallist.
Bruce Kendall racing the Lechner Sailboard 1988
His series sequence was 3, 3, 1, 5, 8, 1, bringing his points to 21.40, comfortably ahead of Italy’s Paco Wirz, who still faced a strong challenge from several rivals for the silver.
“It’s a great feeling to win without having to sail the last race,” said Kendall, before deciding to sail in the final race just for fun.
Kendall was the only medallist from the Los Angeles Games in this competition and therefore one of the favourites. But he was angry with himself after the second race in which he lost the lead in the dying stages. He stayed on the left of the course as he neared the line ahead of American Mike Gebhardt. However, the Kiwi tacked too late and lost speed as the breeze dropped among the spectator fleet. Italy’s Fransesco Wirz pushed through with stronger breeze and Kendall could not keep him out as he ran into Gebhardt’s lee.
After his third placing and win in the opening three races, the New Zealander had to pull off a remarkable recovery in the fourth race to finish fifth.
Due to his experience with the French sailor in 1984 and a sure disqualification for one party in any collision, Kendall had wisely kept clear in the melee of the 45 competitors at the start of race 4. He opted to start well behind the fleet rather than risk collision and possible disqualification.
But the decision meant he rounded the top mark in 19th position. However, Kendall then demonstrated his remarkable skills by overtaking 13 competitors over the next four legs. At the finish, he was behind only winner Carlos Iniesta (Spain), Wirz, Robert Nagy (France) and Bart Verschoor (Netherlands).
Up to 30 knots of wind against 6 knots of current produced mountainous seas and made racing a nightmare in the fifth race, there were many equipment failures. Kendall said later it had been a matter of survival in such conditions in the fifth race. He had crashed into the water 12-15 times. There were moments where the whole fleet was capsized.
He finished eighth in the race. But by discarding that result as his worst, Kendall still held a four-point lead over Jan Boesma, of the Netherlands Antilles. It was the larger size of Boesma that proved crucial in race 5. Borsema was able to stay upright more often and won comfortably from Iniesta. Many sailors failed to finish due to equipment failure.
Kendall’s toes were bleeding and his hands arms and back were strained from the many hours sailing leading up to and including the event and he therefore welcomed the delays in the schedule of races afterward, caused by the continuing extreme conditions.
Kendall’s final points tally was 35.4. Boesma won the silver with 42.7 and Gebhardt the bronze with 48.0.
Kendall’s coach and long-time training partner and rival, Grant Beck, described some of the seas during the series as “terrible.” Kendall, who described himself as “a fulltime amateur,” rather than a part-time professional, put his sailboard up for sale immediately after the competition. He said there was no place for sentiment in the expensive world of yachting.
The 1988 Olympics were to be Bruce Kendall’s last medal winning Games as a windsurfer.
1992 Olympics
The 1992 Olympics in Barcelona were again sailed on the Lechner and again the Olympic Organization provided the equipment. Henery Vanderat from International Sailing Federation endeavoured to avoid the chaos due to requests for redress due to equipment failure as in the radical race 5 from the 1988 Olympics. He changed the rules so that for the only time in Sailing Olympic history competitors were to not allowed any redress for equipment failure.
This set the stage for many problems for the windsurfing fleet. Bridgestone from Japan provided the Lechner boards and Neil Pryde provided the rigs. A few top sailors had equipment failures from both manufactures and were unable to finish.
In race 5 in 8 knots of breeze and a relatively smooth sea state, Kendall had an average start and rounded the top mark in 7th. By half way around the course he has in 5th and closer to first than to 6th in distance and still gaining on first. Things were looking good. Then on the 2nd reach his fin broke off. He tried to finish without a fin but it was impossible and he retired.
Kendall requested to be scored in the position he was in when the fin broke or be given average points result for the regatta for this race. His request for any redress for equipment failure was denied due to the rule. The facts found in the protest were. The fin broke due to faulty manufacture, he had no way of testing the equipment, and it broke through no fault of his own. He was instructed to try and change the ISAF rule. Kendall and the NZ rules team tried to change the rule right until the last race of the regatta. He finished 4th over all. Any form of redress normally within the rules for race 5 would have earned him a medal. It was difficult to loose 4 years and another medal due to some one else’s fault.
Bruce finsihed 4th overall in mens race due to equipment failure with sister Barbara gaining gold overall in womans racing, Barcelona 1992
Leading up to the 1992 Olympic games Bruce, Aaron MacIntosh had worked together and helped Grant beck to train Bruce’s sister Barbara on the Lechner for the 1992 Olympic games. As a result she was to win the Gold medal and take the Kendall Olympic medal winning reigns to bring a total of 5 Olympic windsurfing medals to the Kendall family.
To help exercise the 1992 Olympic games disappointment, Bruce Kendall went on to be the first New Zealander to win an Olympic Class Windsurfing World Championship in 1993 at Kashiwasaki Japan. He won every race except one where he finished second. A result never achieved before in the Olympic Windsurfing Class and unlikely to be repeated. Kendall also became deeply involved with the international administration of the Olympic Windsurfing sport and Mistral the Olympic equipment supplier to help ensure poor equipment and rules would not affect the result of future Olympic Windsurfing medals –at this he was also successful until he retired from involvement in 2004.
1992 - 1996
From 1993 to 1996 he worked with Aaron McIntosh to produce a formidable team that went on to dominate the top positions at Olympic Class windsurfing events. In 1994 at the World Championships in Gimli Canada Aaron was first and Bruce was second. In 1995 World Championships in Port Elizabeth South Africa Aaron was third and Bruce was 4th. Half way through the 1996 world Championships in Haifa Israel Bruce was winning the event easily but contracted a severe illness and was not able to continue sailing it took many months to recover. 1996 was to be his last Olympic class windsurfing world championships where he was a serious contender for first over all.
He went on to coaching and helped Barbara win her Silver in 1996 and Aarons Bronze.
Bruce and turned down some lucrative offers from medal prospect countries and chose to coach a non medal prospect for the 2000 Olympics in Sydney to help give Barbara and Aaron a better chance of winning medals in the 2000 Olympics. His charge Oka Suluksana from Bali Indonesia won a race and both Barbara and Aaron both won Bronze.
In 2002 Bruce decided to coach a top sailor for the 2004 Olympics in Athens Greece Kendall and chose the Greek Nikos Kaklamanakis. Nikos with Bruce’s help won the Silver medal.
In 2005 he coached Sharon Ferris, Raynor Smeal & Ashley Holtum [Ashley had only been sailing for one year] in the Yingling which was the current Women’s Keel boat class to finish second over all at the World Championships on Lake Mondsee, Austria.
An interesting development in 2005, Bruce Kendall came out of retirement to partner Aaron McIntosh on the Tornado class catamaran – the fastest Olympic sailing class ever - in a bid for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Sadly due to a lack of finance they were not able to continue together and did not qualify to represent New Zealand. In 2008 in a surprising turn of events the Olympic catamaran was dropped by ISAF as an Olympic Class. Both Bruce and Aaron then returned to coaching the RSX Olympic windsurfing class for top bidding countries.
Factbox
Bruce Kendall
Born: June 27, 1964, Papakura
Career highlights: Olympic Games, boardsailing, 1984 Los Angeles (Bronze Medal); 1988 Seoul (Gold Medal); 1989 Malta to Sicily Marathon (1st): 1990 Windsurf World Festival, Sicily (2nd); 1990, 1992,1993 Singapore Open (1st) 1992 Barcelona (4th); 1993 World championships: Japan (1st); 1994 Canada (2nd); 1994 International Classes Regatta, Australia (1st)
General: Kendall is the son of former Auckland Yachting Association president, Tony Kendall, and brother of Olympic multi-medallist Barbara. He began in P class and Starlings and later crewed in 470s and keelboats. He then discovered the new sport of boardsailing. In 1982, he left high school to travel the world with friend Grant Beck for international competition.
Miscellaneous: Became second New Zealander, after Russell Coutts, to win single-handed Olympic gold. Faulty equipment prevented Kendall from another medal in Barcelona in 1992. Was the NZ Sailor of the Year in 1988. He suffered a broken neck in a high diving accident in 1990 and a serious lower back and hand injury from a land yachting accident in 2001.
Additional: Won Lonsdale Cup in 1988. The Helberg Fair Play award in 1992. Coached Aaron McIntosh at 1996 Olympics to finish 4th. Was contender for an Olympic spot in 2000. Was member of the International Mistral Class organisation’s technical committee. Was member of the 2001 Halberg Academy in 2001. In 2005, Bruce Kendall came out of retirement to partner McIntosh sailing a Tornado class catamaran in a bid for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Occupations: Was professional boardsailor, salesman and designer and manufacturer of all parts windsurfing equipment, a sales man for various non sailing products, windsurfing and sailing coach.
In 1997 He started a successful business refurbishing contactors for switchgear that was later sold. In 2001 he successfully launched Kaenon eyewear in NZ, which is still a dominant brand in yachting around the world. In 2001 helped found Ahipara VIP adventures a successful high-end adventure tourism company. He organised and ran the closing parties for the 2004, 2007 & 2008 windsurfing world Championships and the 2004 Olympic games windsurfing closing parties. Each event was reputed to have been the best parties of the year of all the Olympic Yachting Classes.