A really awesome weekend, we had pretty good wind for 2 days and could finish a full double elimination in the Freestyle Classics Event here in Austria at Lake Neusiedel.
42 riders registered on Thursday 30th of April for the Event. As we ran a 48-ladder, some riders were placed in the second round, so was I, as I had a top 16 place in the EFPT last year.

There were quite a lot of surprises with the new format,- Only moves that were invented before the Spock 540 should count. – It was really hard to know who would advance, so some usual top-riders were kicked out pretty early already. I had my first heat against Tom Föda from Austria. I sailed and won against him last year, but as said, with this format everything could happen. I had enough moves, so I advanced.. meeting up with my good old friend Tine Slabe from Slovenia. Tine and me met in many heats already as we both are competing since a similar long time. This time I won, however, it was a very very tight decision! Next heat put me against Arnold Digruber from Austria and this was my entry into the finals! Really great, I found myself in the final against Raimondo Gasperini from Italy. In the other part of the heat it was Nicolas Akgazciyan against Tonky Frans.
The wind was really dropping a lot in the last 2-3 heats already..  I took my 5,2 and unfortunately it was a bad choice, I wasn’t really able to do all the moves I could due to lack of wind. Raimondo was planing a bit more and therefore was the winner of this heat. I was pushed into the loosers final and had to sail against Tonky Frans. Tonky was doing great again and even though I had my 5,8 it was not doing good enough to beat the style-icon from Bonaire. This set my 4th place in the single elimination which I was really happy with!
There was still wind, so the race-management started with the double elimination after a short break. My heat was on the next day, somebody would come up to meet me and fight for the 4th place. Chris Sammer performed very well, he sailed and won many heats until he was against me. It was just not really my day, I crashed in too many moves, so at the end Chris took the 4th place and kicked me to the 5th.
Chris was then stopped by Tonky, who also beat Raimondo Gasperini. The final was then fought between Nicolas and Tonky… and Nicolas Akgazciyan won the double elimination of the Freestyle Classics in Podersdorf!

It was cool, somehow like in the “good old days” – I felt like 5-10 years ago when all those, now “classic” moves were the top level moves… It was nice to try this format and I think it could be cool to do such an event every several years…

However we did a supersession Saturday afternoon and it really felt good to be “allowed” to do Ponches, Shakas and Flakas!! It was a cool supersession, Normen Günzlein from Germany made the first place, Andy “Bubble” Chambers the second and Cesar Finies from Bonaire the 3rd place with his unbelievable sail-tricks.
Guess today it will be no wind, maybe a supersession and in the afternoon the official pricegiving.

We have a stand here with our Tricktionary, and also presented the first insight into the Tricktionary DVD (you can see it on one of the photos at the TV in the background) – more soon!

Tuesday the Slalom starts and as far as I heard the wind forecast looks really promising!

All the best from Podersdorf
Rossi

Photos by Sandra Schennach

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