In his spare time he goes windsurfing; professionally, he works with sports data; this season he has combined the two: Jack Andrew has compiled a huge collection of data from the World Cup and founded the “Windsurf Fantasy League”, a sort of windsurfing prediction game. Anyone can put together a team of male and female riders, and points are then awarded based on the actual results. It all kicked off in the summer ahead of the event in Pozo, and there are new features for the upcoming World Cup on Sylt – plus three surfing calendars to be won as prizes! So it’s well worth putting your team together in good time before the start! We asked Jack about how the project came about and his plans.
What is your background (both professionally and in windsurfing) and how did you come up with the idea for a fantasy league in windsurfing?
Professionally, I have worked in the field of sports analytics for around nine years, mainly in Olympic sports at youth and junior level, and I am currently working with the Qatari national athletics team, which is preparing for the 2030 Asian Games. This data-driven background has definitely helped me in setting up the fantasy league, even though much of it was still a steep learning curve. My sporting background is in athletics. I competed for Great Britain in the decathlon at age-group level and made it into the senior European Cup squad once, before ending my career at the end of 2019 – about a year after I’d moved to Qatar for work. Two months later, the pandemic struck… and then came windsurfing! After my athletics career ended and the pandemic hit, I was looking for a new hobby. A few colleagues at work were kitesurfers, so I initially wanted to learn kitesurfing! I couldn’t find an instructor, but then I came across ‘Windsurf Qatar’ on Instagram and eventually found a brilliant instructor here in Qatar: James Dawson. As I’d sailed dinghies as a child, I got the hang of the basics quite quickly and was hooked on windsurfing right from the very first lesson. Let’s fast-forward to September 2025: I took part in a wave course led by Dieter Van der Eyken and Finn Mellon in Ireland. I’d already had the idea of setting up a central website containing all the riders’ competition data, because up until then some information could be found on Live Heats and some on the PWA website, but nothing was consolidated in one place. Dieter thought a fantasy league would be a good idea. I agreed with him wholeheartedly, but didn’t think I’d be able to pull it off. Six months later, after I’d created the first statistics website, I started working on the fantasy league.
How long did it take to develop the Fantasy League, and where do you get the data from?
I spent about three weeks working on it in the evenings and at weekends to get the first version online – although, to be honest, I feel as though I’m still working on it! I developed the initial concept during this year’s Maui Pro-Am and tested it there with a friend. After those three weeks, I had a version that was integrated into the main statistics website; I showed it to about 10 people for feedback, made a few final tweaks and launched it publicly for the first time in Gran Canaria. For Sylt, I’ve just added a ‘Podium Predictor’ to the session mode, where you can score a bonus point by predicting who will finish on the podium. The data comes from both the WWT and PWA websites, depending on who is organising the event. Over the next few weeks, we’ll also be hosting the first fantasy league for a 3-star WWT/PWA wave event, the ‘Mayo Mayhem’. This involved integrating additional data feeds and extending the league to include events outside the 4/5-star structure.
What has the feedback been like following the first events, and how do you intend to take the project forward?
Overall, the feedback has been brilliant and people have been very supportive of the project. Everyone seems simply delighted that there’s a windsurfing fantasy league. If anything, I’d like to hear more feedback so that I can keep improving the project. So if you have any ideas or criticisms, please send me an Direct message on Instagram. In Gran Canaria, we had a few teething problems with the format (over 10 participants were tied for first place!), but these were sorted out when I introduced ‘Slalom X’ and ‘Freestyle’ in Fuerteventura. There’s plenty in the pipeline for next season. Private leagues, so you can organise one with your friends, your club or your brand team. Freestyle and slalom events to be included in the Tour, so that we can crown an overall fantasy champion across all disciplines, just as windsurfing used to have. A brand selector and more analytics for riders and brands to track their performances throughout the season. My ultimate goal is quite simply to get more people watching the World Tour. Windsurfing is such a brilliant sport, and these lads and lasses are incredible athletes who deserve far more airtime than they currently get. There’s so much more that can be done with the statistics website for both riders and fans, especially when combined with the live broadcast.
Thank you very much, and good luck!
You can find all the World Cup statistics and the Fantasy League at windsurfworldtourstats.com
The Citroën Windsurf World Cup Sylt runs from 25 September to 4 October. You can always find all the information, news and results here on surf-magazin.de