2002 Fuerteventura Grand Prix Freestyle Day 1
Head judge Klaus Michel pointed out at the 10 a.m. skippers meeting important issues such as competition area, duration of the heats and the new system of using a launching area where the riders have to present themselves before their heat.
Freestyle competitions are judged on overall impression based on diversity, technical skill and style and the format used today was the so called Dingle Elimination in which three riders compete against each other in the heats of the first round and the winner moves two rounds forward. The second has to compete against a third placed sailor of another heat, and everyone gets a second chance.
What a start! Perfect Freestyle conditions at the beautiful sandy and…of course windy beach at Sotavento. The head judge decided to start with the women’s competition
We saw a good performance of all the riders from the beginning, but no surprises: the four top seeded ladies Freestyle World Champion Colette Guadagnino (JP/Neil Pryde), Daida Ruano Moreno (Mistral/North Sails), Karin Jaggi (F2/Arrows), Tanja Emig (RRD) went straight into the final.
The level of sailing in the final was very high demonstrating a massive step forward this year by the ladies as they performed top moves such as grubbies, spock varieties and difficult sail tricks.
Karin Jaggi (F2/Arrows) started the final with a perfect spock coming in and Colette Guadagnino (JP/Neil Pryde) answered with a huge front loop. Willy skippers, one handed body drags and a grubby completed the repertoire.
Daida Ruano Moreno (Mistral, North Sails) didn’t start her heat very well but then pulled out a perfect planing back loop. "I saw the other girls performing amazing moves and was kind of tense but after that back loop I gained confidence and the things got better" she told us. And they did: She performed a beautiful spock 540 followed by a very clean spock, which brought her the win. Second place for Karin Jaggi (F2/Arrows) and third place for the Venezuelan lady Colette Guadagnino (JP/Neil Pryde) who both sailed to a high standard.
Results 1st Elimination Freestyle
1. Daida Ruano Moreno (Mistral, North Sails)
2. Karin Jaggi (F2/Arrows)
3. Colette Guadagnino (JP/Neil Pryde)
4. Tanja Emig (RRD)
After the ladies final it was straight into the elimination heats of the men. The wind had slightly picked up, the riders took mostly 4,5 square meter sails and the competition went off from the beginning:
The first heat of the day could have already been a final facing the three top riders Josh Stone (JP/Neil Pryde), Web Pedrick (North Sails) and Tati Frans (AHD/ Gaastra).
But as it is a Dingle the cards were just remixed.
The newcomers from Bonaire Tati and Tonky Frans (both AHD/Gaastra) had a very good first day moving up to the fourth round and were only stopped by the young German rider Andy Pusch (JP/Neil Pryde) and Christian Sammer (F2/Arrows) from Austria respectively who was sailing at his best. Sammer was still on fire in the quarter finals but had to face wonder boy Ricardo Campello (JP/Neil Pryde) who performed incredible moves such as planing Goyters, clean Swayzes on the way out and Sammer had no chance of beating the 17 year old kid from Venezuela.
Another rider who sailed very well was the young Englishman John Skye (F2/Arrows) who defeated reigning World Champion Antoine Albeau (AHD, Neil Pryde) and in the following heat the remaining French hope Mathieu Bonno (JP/ Neil Pryde) and moved into the losers final (battle for 3rd and 4th place) after losing against Campello (JP/Neil Pryde) who showed Freestyle to perfection.
Two times World Champion Josh Stone (JP/Neil Pryde) was stopped, after defeating the winner of the Pozo Freestyle event Matt Pritchard (AHD/Gaastra), by his team mate Diony Guadagnino (JP/Neil Pryde), who celebrates his 20th birthday today.
Diony pulled out the move of the day a perfectly landed high clew first front loop.
He then lost in the quarter finals against one of the most consistent riders on tour in 2002 Nik Baker (Mistral/North Sails) who performed very difficult combinations of spocks and clew first spock 540’s and looked very solid and pulled out an amazing range of manoeuvres.
Nik moved into the winner’s final by beating in a close but fair decision team mate "flying" Vidar Jensen (Drops/North Sails) who showed his trademark move a fully planning one handed front loop and a nice variety of old school and new school tricks and was very happy with his performance: "When I saw the level of the first heats I thought that was it… but I could manage to make good use of the upcoming waves and things turned out well for me.
The final between Nik Baker (Mistral/North Sails) and Ricardo Campello (JP/Neil Pryde) was Freestyle at its best:
It seemed like an "orgy" of the most difficult moves ever performed such as Swayzes, Shove it into Vulcan and all kinds of spock variations.
Ricardo was on fire and sailed in a very impressive way while Nik failed in an attempt to combine various moves and crashed a Swayze just before the red flag.
Ricardo Campello (JP/Neil Pryde) showed with his performance that he is a serious threat to top Freestylers such as Nik Baker (Mistral/North Sails), Antoine Albeau (AHD/Gaastra) Josh Stone (JP/Neil Pryde) Matt Pritchard (AHD/Gaastra) and the question of this contest is: WHO can stop this kid???
We will bring you the answer in the next few days…
Results of the first Freestyle elimination
1. Ricardo Campello (JP/Neil Pryde)
2. Nik Baker (Mistral/North Sails)
3. Vidar Jensen (Drops/North Sails
4. John Skye (F2/Arrows) who