Fuerteventura PWA Super-X Exhibition Day 2

Two rounds of the exhausting Super-X radical windsurfing discipline were completed today in the nuclear winds at Sotavento.

 

Antoine Albeau (AHD / Neil Pryde) scored a first and a second place today just maintaining his lead for the overall championships,

Two rounds of the exhausting Super-X radical windsurfing discipline were completed today in the nuclear winds at Sotavento.

Antoine Albeau (AHD / Neil Pryde) scored a first and a second place today just maintaining his lead for the overall championships, despite the course being changed to be even more freestyle orientated. The big Frenchman is excelling in these strong winds and choppy seas, muscling his way around spocks and loops yet still holding the racing line and the biggest sails.

Today competitors had to land a forward loop, two spocks, a grubby, three jumps over obstacles and three duck gybes, all in the two minute races! Greg Allaway (JP / Neil Pryde) from Australia said, “Three rounds a day is too bloody much mate! I got home last night and couldn’t move!” Even the current leader Antoine was saying Super-X is amazingly physical and all the sailors coming ashore were clearly out of breath and knackered!

The amazing acceleration of Kauli Seadi (AHD / Naish), not to mention his sprinting down the beach during the running starts, enabled him to have enormous leads by the first mark, sometimes 100m ahead of the pack after only 300m of racing! His planing forward loops made him almost untouchable today and despite wiping out on a few of the spocks he still managed to score first and third. This leaves him in second overall with a fighting chance of taking the championships tomorrow if he beats Antoine again. In classic Kauli style, rather than simply jumping over one of the obstacles today, he spocked over it and seems to have become the crowds favorite.

Ricardo Campello (JP / Neil Pryde) was also landing planing forward loops keeping his speed up during the reaches, but like every competitor here, he was wiping out elsewhere in this incredibly tricky discipline. After five rounds he’s now moved up into fourth place behind team mate Julian Taboulet (JP / Neil Pryde), who combines incredible speed and heaps of muscle into his maneuvers and pumping to accelerate into third overall now with a consistent set of results, which will probably see him on the podium tomorrow night.

Douglas Diaz (Fanatic / North), Greg Allaway (JP / Neil Pryde) and John Skye (F2 / Arrows) all dropped down the rankings today as none of them made the finals, allowing Spain’s Victor Lopez (Fanatic) move up into sixth place but with young Douglas still hanging onto fifth.

“By the next event everyone is going to have better equipment. The wave sail’s we’re on are too soft, whereas Antoine’s Super-X sails are fully tuned for racing and have much better acceleration off the beach” John Hibbard (Starboard) said.

So the two sailors really excelling in Super-X right now are Antoine and Kauli, although Julian and Ricardo stepped up their pace today and are likely to do more damage tomorrow. The standard of the whole fleet has improved dramatically in such a short time, with many of the young freestylers beginning to find the racing line and everyone ecstatic about this incredibly high action challenge.


TODAY'S RESULTS – SUPER-X MEN</B> <BR> <BR>
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