Friday started with light wind and a cloudy sky at the Windsurf World Cup in Westerland/Sylt. The race crew was fighting with the volatile conditions to lay out a slalom course. When conditions finally stabilized and the wind shifts became less extreme, the racers left the beach to embark on race 3. With the majority of the first round completed the previous day, it wasn't long before round two was in full swing. Arnon Dagan (Israel) made a perfect start in his heat, contstantly extending his lead around the gybe marks until he fell at the last marks. However his lead was so huge that he could afford such a crash. He still crossed the finish line in 1st. There were a few upsets in round 2: Taty Frans (Bonaire) false started and was disqualified. Antoine Albeau (France) won the rerun of this heat who dominated from the second gybe onwards. Ohter victims in round 2 were Ben Van Der Steen (Netherlands), Gonzalo Costa Hoevel (Argentina) and Josh Angulo (Cape Verde).
The race leader so far, Ross Williams (Great Britain) was defeated in the first semi final due to the changing Sylt conditions. After fighting amongst the qualifying positions on the first reach, a sudden
dive in wind speed saw him drop off the plane on his 7.6m and
effectively loose any hope of making the winners final. Armed with
bigger sails, the rest of the competitors left Williams in there wake,
and ultimately saw Albeau win his second heat on the event.
On the other hand, curretn slalom world no. 3 Kevin Pritchard (USA) who hadn't been shown his class yet, claimed his first win here in Sylt ahead of Robby Swift (Great Britain) and Cyril Moussilmani (France), in second and third respectively.
The participants of the final hit the water to battle in the strongest wind of the elimination. Antoine Albeau's demonstrated his dominance this season, as the Frenchman
barged his way into the lead and never looked back, claiming his first
race victory of the event. Close behind, but never threatening, Bjorn
Dunkerbeck (Switzerland) took second place, and Cyril Moussilmani third. The
losers final was won by Williams, who turned it on to cruise to a
convincing victory, handing him ninth place in the third race and
enough to maintain his event lead, ahead of Dunkerbeck in second, and
team France, who occupy positions 3,4,5,6,7 and 8!
As the wind increased the race comittee decided to switch from the slalom discipline to resume competition where it had left off two days
previous.
First to fall were Kai Lenny (USA) and Mat Pearch (Great Britain),
who failed to match their high flying rivals, Ricardo Campello (Venezuela) and Philip Köster (Spain).
Moving
into the second round of heats, the heaving German crowds were treated
to an epic aerial fight courtesy of current world no. 2 in wave riding Victor Fernandez (Fanatic,
Simmer, MFC), who took on Antoine Albeau, and Danny Bruch (Gaastra, MFC) who
took on Alex Mussolini (Spain). It was Bruch and Fernandez
that stole the show, executing perfect, towering backloops and
monumental forward rotations. Bruch even attempted the only double loop of
the day.
As expected,
big wave legend Jason Polakow (JP, NeilPryde) fully met expectations. Slightly
mediocre jumping was more than compensated for with mind blowing wave
riding. Needless to say, the Aussi ripper advanced through his
heat.
The single elimination was put to a premature halt by darkness
drawing in, ending another day of windsurf action on the roaring North Sea.
