Freestyle Day 2

Gisela Pulido and Alex Pastor are the winners of the PKRA freestyle World Cup in Fuerteventura. With perfect 9 to 10 meter weather and flat water, the riders could not have asked for better conditions in Fuerteventura for the single elimination. The two full ladders of men and women were run for a total of six hours of freestyle. Alexander Neto and Sergey Borisov are just a few of the riders that had amazing heats and Liam Whaley made his first PKRA final. Karolina Winkowska was injured and left Gisela Pulido without her two nemeses, but Annabel Van Westrop and Victoria Rosinska had some great heats to get to the podium.

The final between Alex pastor and Liam Whaley was very close with the two riders landing similar tricks, but Alex Pastor was a little more powerful to win the single. Alex took an early lead with a nice S-mobe, BJ3, back mobe 5 and double s-bend pass 3, but Liam almost caught Alex in the dying minutes of the heat with a 720 back mobe and near perfect S-3. Alex is a few points closer to his goal of being world champion but will have to defend against many potential contenders in the double elimination.



The women’s final was dominated by Gisela Pulido who landed a 313, blind judge 3, S-mobe and air back to blind. Annabel Van Westerop did all she could in her first final with an S-1, BJ and air back to blind but it was not enough to defeat Gisela. Gisela will have to defend her position in the single against the possible return of Karolina Winkowska in the double elimination.



The battle for third place between Marc Jacobs and Eudazio Da Silva took a very strange twist when Eudazio crashed his first trick, then came back to the beach to change kites, this took a few minutes and when he finally came back to the water landed six tricks in a matter of seconds and closed the gap with Marc Jacobs, but Marc’s powerful riding had done enough damage already to secure a 3rd place finish. The women’s battle for the last podium spot was between Paula Novotna and Victora Rosinska a polish rider that trains in Fuerteventura. This proved to be a key factor in getting just a slight edge over Novotna to get the last podium spot.

The men’s quarterfinal heats were all the exciting with the riders like Borisov landing some of the biggest tricks with the most power that were thrown today, but could not land enough to upset Jacobs. Tack did not find his rhythm and Whaley was riding extremely well. Hadlow came up against Alex Pastor who was on fire and could do nothing to slow down the Spaniard. He had some very clean and well executed tricks, but Pastor was more aggressive. Da Silva defeated Stefan who was only able to land four tricks out of five possible needed to get a maximum score.

In the earlier rounds Alexander Neto had a great heat with a 34.27 that was the third highest score of the day only behind Pastor who had a 35.47 against hadlow and Liams 34.47. Alex Pastor also had the highest scoring move of the day with a double S-bend pass 3 that scored an 8.40. Reno lost to his team mate Stefan and said he was “lucky in love, but not at Play”.

The double elimination’s will start tomorrow at 12 o’clock and will finish Saturday afternoon. This will give the opportunities for many riders to move back up in the rankings over the next two days. This will give the riders ample time to rest while moving back up the doubles ladder. The main challenges will come from the wind that is forecasted to be picking up tomorrow and Saturday, with gusts forecasted into the 40 knots. With winds like this, we can expect some pretty amazing riding and a few big air tricks.

Freestyle Day 1

The PKRA freestyle event in Fuerteventura started this afternoon with the trials, to select the top man that will be competing in the main event. 41 men and 12 women registered for the freestyle event. This means that 33 men have to go through the trials for the 14 spots available in the main event. The wind was around 20 knots, the men were mostly on their 9 meters and the water was perfectly flat. Many top seeds advanced like Hadlow, Shitzhofer, Spiessberger and more, but some big upsets who did not make it in like the Garat brothers, Serin, Bakker and Scholte.

The skippers meeting was held at 10:30, but with the wind being capricious the competition did not start until 12:15. The conditions were very tame for Fuerteventura giving the opportunity to the riders to land some big moves. Even though we did not see any doubles during the trials, they will surely come out for the main event. The top riders are able to land their repertoire of tricks, easily asserting themselves above the competition and qualifying directly into the main event.

The format of the trials is very simple; nine heats are run of 3 to 4 men with the winners advancing directly into the main event. All the losers of the first round meet in round two for 6 heats of three men with the winners advancing to the next round. Round three is composed of two heats with the top two seeds advancing and the two losers meet in round four and the winner takes the final spot into the main event.

In heat one Patrick Blanc advanced over his competitors with some powerful handle passes like and S-1 and S-mobe with the kite low. In heat two Spiessberger landed a clean front blind mobe to advance. Hadlow was in heat three, even though he was not very powerful, his riding was extremely clean and technical and qualified for the main event. Garaschenko surprised Hutter in heat four with some big moves. Schitzhofer was constant and powerful in heat five and advance while Nico Suriel went huge to get his win in heat six. Madson was extremely clean and powerful in heat seven. Corniel won a close heat over S.Garat to qualify for the main event. In the last heat of round one Borisov only landed a few tricks but they were extremely well executed and powerful to get the win. After this first round five spots remain for 18 riders.

In round two the riders are under a lot of pressure, because the must win the heat to remain in the competition and only one out of three rider advances to the next round. The six riders that advanced were Neto, Fermon, DaSilva, Bobryk, Hutter and Umpierre. The second round had two extremely close heats. One with Serin, Bobryk and Alcazar with the judges having a split decision and in a very close heat Bobryk advanced to the next round. The other close heat was between Umpierre and Sebastien and Valentin Garat. Once again the judges were split and the decision went to Umpierre.

The third round was a great show with everyone advancing to either the main event or the next round. Hutter and Neto took care of business early while umpierre would need another heat to qualify for the main event by defeating Fermon. Da Silva and Bobryk advanced over fermon with bigger moves and more power.

The trials are getting harder every PKRA event and just winning a heat is becoming very challenging with strong competitors coming from all over the world. The 14 that advanced into the main event will have a chance to challenge the top eight riders in the world and maybe achieve a top eight results to move up in the rankings and no longer have to go through trials. The main event is set, with a very talented fleet. Youri Zoon and Bruna Kajiya are the two missing competitors from this main event, who will be out for the rest of the season due to injuries.



Kevin Langeree: "Last warm up for a big day. I have a pretty though draw tomorrow, in my first heat it's either Alberto Rondina or Aaron Hadlow. Last time I rode against Aaron was back in 2009, so that could be a really exciting heat. And if I'll win I'm up against Alex Pastor."

Zou wat zijn als live het een keer zou doen....

Langeree krijgt als eerste Hadlow of Rondina tegenover zich. Mocht hij die heat doorkomen dan is Pastor de volgende die het tegen hem opneemt. Wordt dus nog spannend!

Live stream schijnt het te doen. Eerste heats zijn al gevaren.

langeree - hadlow

echt aflandige wind

Kevin en Christophe er beide al uit

Annabel 2de in de singles

Hi, flag beach klopt volgens mij niet, moet sotavento zijn.Beetje rare eerste post, maar voor een ieder die net als ik live wil gaan kijken is het wel handig om te weten dat je niet naar flag beach hoeft te gaan.

Annabel is on fire: 2e plaats, gefeliciteerd!

(voetnoot: Winkowska en Kajiya deden niet mee)