published in Panay News, 16 January 2011 (Sunday)
PROFILE OF AN ACHIEVER
by Ulysses V. Espartero
Nenette Aguirre Graf
Asia’s Fastest Lady Windsurfer
A hotelier, restaurateur, public servant and athlete, windsurfing instructor and coach and water sports event organizer.
These are just few of the many titles that Nenette Aguirre Graf humbly carries with commitment and dedication.
A native of Malay and Tangalan towns in Aklan, Nenette was born to spouses Rufino Sullano Aguirre and Flora Irao Tajaran. She’s married to Robert Graf of Switzerland. They have one child, Leonae Isabyl Aguirre Graf. She’s into windsurfing for 22 years since 1984.
She was Philippine champion for 18 years from 1988 to 2006. Semi-retired since 2006, the sportswoman in her is proud to have been an 11 times ladies Slalom champion of the Boracay International Funboard Cup leg of Asian Windsurfing Tour. She competed against the best lady windsurfer in Asia.
She was an 8-time Action Asia Speed Trials champion in a competition which afforded her the honor of having been declared as the “Fastest Lady in Asia” for 52.48 knots record in speed. She was also champion in the Ladies Class in Jeju Korea 2001 (course racing) and champion in Ladies Class in Jeju Korea 2002 (Slalom).
Her biggest achievement so far is attributed to her participation in the 2002 Jeju International Windsurfing Festival when she hit her head 2 cm above her eyebrow with a windsurfing boom during one of the race. This left a cut that needed 8 stitches inside and outside. “I had to skip racing for half a day and continued the next day with bandage and still managed to win all the races until the final s and became the ladies champion,” she recalled.
She has been recognized as a founder and organizer of the country’s longest running and most successful annual international sporting event, the Boracay International Funboard Cup. This has been hailed as the most popular and one of the biggest windsurfing and kite boarding event in Asia.
In 1989, Roby and Nenette Graf of Green Yard Beach resort organized a regatta at Bulabog Beach to mark their wedding anniversary.
“The tradition that the Grafs started continued throughout the years. What started as a spur-of-the-moment regatta has now become Asia’s best amateur boardsailing blast,” according to Spots Guide.
She also brought the sport kiteboarding to the country on November 2002 by the opening of the first school in Boracay and brought tope of the line kite equipments to make available to the local and expats.
Today, Boracay Island is regarded internationally as Asia’s best windsurfing and kitesurfing sport and one of the best in the world. She also co-organized the Boracay International Dragon Boat Festival, the country’s biggest annual international sporting event in the country held every summer at Boracay’s white beach.
published in Panay News, 16 January 2011 (Sunday)
