Tag: Podersdorf

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EVENTS PWA

PWA | PODERSDORF

PWA Podersdorf 2016

What a blast to finally compete again! It’s been a while since I was able to compete again, but I’m back on tour again and it’s very exciting for me to perform again on the highest level! The PWA Podersdorf was a great way to step out of my comfort zone and to challenge my level against the very best Freestyle windsurfers in the World. I could win a couple heats and I lost couple too. The level right now is again very high, though I feel that there’s much more potential for me and so there is for others in the upcoming tourstops. The new live-scoring system at the PWA is great way to get the needed feedback to step up the level of sailing during heats. Even though I had a couple of good heats and lost by sometimes close scores, I really know now where to improve! I’m thrilled to be back again, as this will be a very exciting year!

Thanks to all my loyal sponsors, partners, familie and friends supporting and believing in me!

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EFPT

EFPT | 9th. Place

EFPT 9th. place at European Tow-in
Qualification rounds: the Tow-in was a big spectacle every night, every rider in and out of Europe got two runs to put there best performance down. Only the best 3 of each could get their spot into the final. For the final top 10 there was a special place reserved for the very best 4th. position. Actually I never had the chance to practice Tow-in and I knew everybody had a good practice during the lack of wind at several Worldcups or European championships last year. A number of riders have been training this quite a lot during there winter training. I analyzed the previous rounds what to do and what defiantly not to do. Because with tow-in the wind is coming from whole different direction. During the qualification rounds I first went for a save Airfunnel. My plan was making a double rotation but this didn’t worked out yet. The rounds after my first jump every body was getting wild and the level of each rider went trough the roof. I knew I had to step my game for my second run run to qualify myself for the final. So I did. The jet ski was going super fast, the tears where in my eyes and when approaching the jump area I could launch myself in a good Burner 540. The  EFPT stated: “The lucky loser, who will join the nine riders of the three qualification runs will be  Dutch sailor Maarten Van Ochten, who’s burner scored 28 points and therefor kicked Tonky Frans out of that last place.. 

The fleet for tonight’s final will be: Steven Van Broeckhoven (JP/Neilpryde), Maarten Van Ochten (JP/Neilpryde), Julien Mas, Nicolas Akgazciyan (Starboard), Dieter Van der Eyken (Starboard), Gollito Estredo (North/Fanatic), Max Matissek (North/Fanatic), Kiri Thode (Starboard), Björn Saragoza (Starboard) and Taty Frans (Starboard). We are expecting an incredible final, which will start at 8.30 pm (Austrian time), like every evening” Yesterday night, the Chiemsee European Tow In Championship went into it’s last round. As the crowds filled the beaches, the ten qualified riders made their way to the launch area. It wasn’t long before Maarten Van Ochten opened the finals, with his first move. The atmosphere was electric and never before has such a large number of people been seen at a tow-in event. Everybody was expecting a lot of the sailors who made it into the final and their high expectations were fulfilled in every kind of way as the riders showed high air moves and powerful combinations that had never been seen before. EFPT: “in 9th place, the Dutchmen, Maarten Van Ochten (JP/Neilpryde) scored 22,75 points for a really nice burner. Maarten told us that it was the second time he had ever tried tow in. Well done”! 1st place and therefor the first European Tow-In Champion EVER is current Freestyle World Champion Steven Van Broeckhoven (JP/Neilpryde) who scored 37 points for the most perfect triple funnel with a sail duck at the end. Coming into the spotlight at full speed, Steven popped his board out of the water three times in a row, like a stone skimming the surface. He was extremely close to the judging platform, the spectators loved it, and showed their appreciation with huge applause. I’m glad taking 9th. place overall in the open European Champions Ships Tow-in 2012! Big congratulations to my teammate Steven van Broeckhoven who won the title.

Photos: John Carter / EFPT

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PWA

PWA | PODERSDORF

PWA Podersdorf summary
The PWA in Podersdorf 2012, was again a well organised event with lot’s of spectators visiting the scene everyday combined with a good and warm atmosphere. Apart from other years we’ve now had only warm days each and everyday. This time I brought lot’s of warm clothing even a snowboard pants and Jacket to keep me warm during the event. Needless to say with the forecast which provided only South East wind and really warm weather. I didn’t need any of that besides a few short and T-shirts.The first day was registration plannend and for me getting all the gear ready for the event. The second day of the event we’ve had some wind enough to complete four heats from the single elimination that day.


On the third day the actual forecast was great and in the morning the wind was all ready good for 5,3- 5,0 weather. As the wind direction was really offshore we had to compete far outside from the actual beach. This made it difficult to decide what gear to take as the wind was changing in strength too. Lot’s of riders organized a caddy with bigger or smaller gear, in case the wind changed, there was no time to get back to shore and swap sails nor boards. I decided to use my big Freestyle board the JP Freestyle 106 Pro and my 5.3 Neilpryde Firefly. This day I had to compete against Julien Mas F-07 from France. Last year I wasn’t able to compete, this also effected my seeding. I didn’t have seeding for 2012. This also means that I had to face a quite a tough, draw. But than again the level right now is so high from all riders so there are almost no easy rounds and anything can happened during the competition. Julien Mas progressed a lot last winter  a strong rider and for sure I had to sail a good heat in order to pass him. On Porttack I started of with a high Shaka, bouncing of into a flaka this move field solid and gave me confidence for my second move a good Shovitspock 540 followed by a Ponsch. On starboard tack my best moves where a Ponsch, Burner and Double switch Chachoo. When nailing also the Ponsch over the other tack I had a good feeling that I won. My moves were solid, powerfull. Julien Mas was sailing good to but not as good as I saw him in free sailing, landing some moves a little wet.


When arriving back at the beach my teammate, who was watching the heat Yegor Popertinsky, told me that I won for sure and my next heat was against him. This could get a interesting heat too. As I was getting prepared I heard the news that not me but Julien passed? Julien was really surprised and glad advancing to next round??!! I was confused and asked the land crew if they might made a mistake giving not the right name? Went back to judging boat which took me another twenty minutes as the field was far from shore, all ready a little mad I stepped on to the boat. Received the scoring sheets and it noticed to little scoring at variety and technical difficulty?! All my moves were different apart from each other and technical difficulty was rated to low accordingly to the other judge who saw my heat too?! Normally I’m not that kind of person who’s starts to making a scene at the judging tower. Having factualy mistaken my moves which caused me to go out the first round was a big disappointment for me! The upcoming days I had to wait for the double ellimination to work my self back up in the ladder again.The weather was playing a game with everybody although the PWA Crew did there honest best trying to run the the double elimination but the wind didn’t seem to cooperate which resulted in one single counted elimination only for a final result. Like at every competition you have to give it all to succeed and to create a final good result. This year I’ve been training hard and as we have still three more events to go (with one discard) nothing is decided yet (Fuerteventura, Sylt and Vietnam), I hope we get to compete a lot combined with good conditions and I’m looking forward to the Worldcup in Fuerteventura.


Result PWA Podersdorf 2012

  1. Gllito Estredo V-10 Venuzuela
  2. Taty Frans NB-9 Bonaire
  3. Kiri Thode NB-61 Bonaire
  4. Steven van Broeckhoven B-72 Belgium

Photos: John Carter

Categories
PWA

PWA | PODERSDORF – 5th

PWA Podersdorf 2010 Day 1
Registration started for the PWA Worldcup season 2010 at 10 am. After receiving all the sponsor/ event/ stickers and event lycra’s. It was time for a little interview and few photos. After all the participators had registered we had a big welcome meeting from the organizers and whole EFPT/ PWA crew regarding the information for the upcomming days. As pland we suppose to start with the competition at 12:30, unfortunately the wind was to light. After having waited until 7:30 pm. we where released for this day of competition.


Overall impression: the event organisers did a really good job overruling every year the size of the event, to describe the whole scene in one word; “HUGE”. Besides the windsurfing competition and stands from all kind windsurf ore wind-/ watersport related brands, there’s also a lot partying going on in 7 different areas. This will also give you kind of idea how many visitors there expecting; thousands (± 5000>..).
The wheater; the forecast for now doesn’t look to promising, warm wheater and not to much wind for upcoming days. But according to the locals here, the wind can be quit surprising here in this area even when there’s really bad forecast. Let’s hope for the best!Riders presentation/ vip: around 10:00 am. we had the riders presentation, this was mainly about introducing all the  the riders to the audience. After that we where told going again on stage representing us to main stage and the party audiance. There we got a special vip area and some extra tickets so we could let some special people in.


 

PWA Podersdorf 2010 Day 2
After having the announcement that chances were non having any wind this day, it was super windy from 6:00 until 8:00 in the morning. The wind literally woke me up. 9AM Skippers meeting the wind already decreased in force. 9:30AM heat nr. 1 was ready to go, unfortunately the wind got even worse. After waiting, resailing the heat twice there was not enough wind finish the heat. So the PWA crew decided to prospone the competition every 15 min. As for today the wind didn’t show up enough, running a proper competition. Tomorrow skippersmeeting will be held at 6AM, first possible start at 6:15AM. So it will be an early birdie again, because my first. Austrian TV “hottest rider-/man contest”: today there was a contest organised by ATV looking for man and riders rating. The whole idea was a model working for ATV had to check at our but, chest and upper body. Highest score rating was 5 point. I scored 2 x 5 and 4+ finishing 2nd. Really stoked haha.

This morning I woke up at 5 clock because the skippers meeting was being held at 6am in the morning, with first possible start 6:15. When I arrived there was some wind, but definitely not enough to run a competition. Also for today not to much developments regarding the weather conditions. There has been some south winds predicted for tomorrow, but usually they fill in the end of the day. Tomorrow the skippers meeting will be at 8:30 so let’s hope for the best.

 


PWA Podersdorf 2010 Day 4
Today we were allowed to sleep a little longer than 5am. Skippersmeeting started at 8:30 but the wind was fairly light with an average 6 knots average, which is off course not enough to run a proper competition ore to even get on planning speed. The whole day it was rainy and also there temperature dropped quit a lot to. Around 15:00 the wind started slowly to increase a little and after a while me including a few other riders decided to go on the water to check the conditions. Unfortunately this was only for really short period of time and then wind dropped of again to a average of ±8 knots. Tomorrow the skippersmeeting will be at 6am again, which means 5am out of bed! Hopefully more news tomorrow, I’ll keep you posted!

PWA Podersdorf 2010 Day 5
Today I woke up at 5am in the morning to fresh for the skippersmeeting which was at 6am. Only few riders showed up during the skippermeeting, the rest didn’t even show up before 9. Almost the whole day there was around 0 to 2knots and lake was dead flat, great for wakeboarding. During the midday some of the riders started up a small soccer competition “Europe VS South America”. It was a tight game which ended in penalty’s, this time won by the South American team. These photos where taken yesterday during the realy, realy, reaaaly light wind: Tomorrow skippersmeeting will be at 5:30. The wheaterforecast looks the same as today but here in Austria you’ll never know!


PWA Podersdorf 2010 Day 6
Just a quick update for now, today I woke up at 4:30AM. First start was at 5:45! Although the wind forecast was looking pretty bad we finally had some wind. Which eventually only increased during the day. The wind was kind of  light, definitely not my favorite conditions! I managed to keep my head cool and sail a lot of powerfull heats. In the end I lost against Nr 2 of the world (Kiri Thode NB 61). My first top 5 in my career, very excited!


 

PWA Podersdorf 2010 Final report
I just came back from the Worldcup in Podersdorf. I decided to stay one day longer because after competition it was still windy… good for a sweet freestyle session on my JP Freestyle 98 and my Neilpryde Firefly 5.3. An inside view of the PWA: The competition setup was 7 minute heats with 3 minutes transition time. The Freestyle competition format was for 6 moves on both tacks with only the best 3 tricks counting for the overall score.


My first heat (nr 3A) was against French rider Julian Mas (F-7). The wind was quite light so I decided to start off with fast powerfull moves instead of waiting for the right gust of wind. This would give me the benefit of having some extra time, incase the wind would drop even more during the heat. I sailed a solid heat and advanced to the next round! My second heat (Heat nr 11B) was against another French rider Leo Ray (F-200). Fortunately this time the wind increased a little, so I could go for some more power moves like Shovit-spocks, No-handed Flaka’s and Ponches. But after one minute the wind shifted a little and dropped of quite a lot. But Leo Ray was still planing and throwing moves. Just before the end of the heat I was still missing one move on starboard tack. I decided to take a little risk and throwing a really long stalled Chachoo in front of the judges. After landing this move, the red flag went up and I had a good feeling about my score.


Now I moved further in the elimination ladder to another heat (Nr. 18A). My next opponent was Aruban rider Quincy Offringa (Aru-10). As I always train with Quincy in Aruba at the Fishermans Huts, I knew this was going to be an interesting heat. Normally, we always sail together and push each on the water, so I was ready for more action. A few minutes before the start of the heat, the wind increased more so I could sail powerd-up with my Neilpryde Firefly 5.7 and my JP Freestyle 107 pro. I started my heat with a Ponch into flaka, a Shovit-Spock followed by an Air Flaka, than a switch Flaka over the other tack and a Bob one-handed handed over the starboard tack. Now I only had to land a few more moves on port… with a Bob One-Handed, Shaka and Switch Chachoo. After finishing all my moves I was quite happy with my heat and I advanced to another round.

Heat nr. 21B, this was going to be a really tough one against “Vice Worldchampion” Kiri Thode (NB-61 ). Beating this rider in these sort of conditions you’d need a really good heat!! I knew I would have to take some risk to be able to beat him. Kiri was sailing an amazing good heat and I didn’t sail such a good one. In the end, the judges announced that Kiri advanced to semi-final and he deserved it. Heat Nr. 21B was for me the last heat of this World Cup, which placed me on a final 5th. position!

After the Competition:
After that we drove back home (with Steven van Broeckhoven and Davy Scheffers). I planned going straight to a test/promo-event from JP and Neilpryde at the Brouwersdam. Now back home I hope to train as much as I can on flat water and in the waves too. Hopefully this will give me the slight edge improving my big jumps for competitions like PWA Lanzarote and PWA Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands.


*Final top 5 ranking Worldcup Podersdorf:

  1. Taty Frans NB-9 (Bonaire)
  2. Steven van Broeckhoven B-72 (Belgium)
  3. Gollito Estredo V-01 (Venezula )
  4. Kiri Thode NB-61 (Bonaire )
  5. Maarten van Ochten H-73 (Netherlands)


Photos: John Carter PWA