Bonaire Youth Slalom PWA World Cup
The wind blew perfectly all day long on day three of the 2024 Bonaire Youth Slalom PWA World Cup - allowing a further five races for all fleets to completed. After yesterday’s clean sweep by the event leaders, they didn’t have things all their own way today with three new faces claiming bullets.
In the U21 / U17 fleet, Brendan Lorho (FMX Racing / Point-7) once again got off to a winning start, but he couldn’t continue his impressive run of 6 back-to-back wins in the second elimination of the day as the local rider, Bimbi Clappers (Future Fly / S2Maui) had a unbelievable start and mastered the light wind conditions to earn his maiden bullet.
After a long break for lunch, a nice crowd formed on the beach for the final two races and it was Joa van den Berg (FMX Racing / S2Maui), who got the crowd truly amped up with his first win on the PWA Youth World Tour.
After a solid 15 rounds of racing, it looks like Lorho has this one wrapped up, barring any major disasters, as he currently only counts first place results for the entire event
Racing alongside the U21 Boy’s is the U17 Boy’s and the battle here is fiercely close between Tycho Smits (Future Fly / NeilPryde) and Storm Nicolai (Starboard / Duotone) - with just 3.3 points separating the two sailors heading into the final day of racing tomorrow.
In the U15 Boy’s, Barrie Sassen and Jaevian IJtsma took one race a piece ahead of Arxon Gomperts (Future Fly / Point-7), who has been otherwise faultless all week. Sassen had a slightly shaky start to the week (excluding his bullet in the opening round) with some equipment issues, but he has really pulled it together in the last two days to put in a solid performance with moments of brilliance.
In the U13 Boy’s, Joey Ross continues to lead, but the gap has narrowed after a difficult day for the 11-year-old Aruban. Both Tobi Korver and Julien Blom had solid days and are going from strength to strength throughout this event with big improvements in their racing day by day.
In the Girl’s division, U17 Bobbi-Lynn De Jong (Starboard / NeilPryde) continues her flawless performance with a further five wins, although a fantastic performance once again from her younger sister Kit De Jong (Starboard / NeilPryde) scoring only second & third places on day three, which shows there really is strength in depth in the De Jong household! A mention also has to go to Louise van der Meulen (Starboard / NeilPryde) for taking Bobbi-Lynn all the way to the line in Elimination 3. Whilst she unfortunately missed out on the race win, it looks like the Aruban has got it all but sealed up for the U21 title this week.
There is plenty still to play for on the final day in Bonaire so stay tuned to the socials for all the updates!