Endreport Rossi_AUT256 - PWA Lanzarote

08 July 2007

We did 3 eliminations during the last week here in Lanzarote. If there was not freestyle there was slalom. With my seeding as last, as i had no results so far and no ranking from last year, it was obvious, that i would have a top ranked rider as my first opponent. So the heat i missed cause of the flight troubles we had, was straight against Kevin Mevissen. However, unfortunately i was not so lucky afterwards either, had not the best heats and so most of the time first round out.

The last Single i was set against Cheo Diaz, i lost for just half a point - which was the closest decision of the Event. It was a 2:1 decision (2 judges for him, 1 for me) and it was 47 points for me and 47,5 points for Cheo - i lost, but it was a quite good heat for me. Well - i finished only 22nd in this worldcup, i hoped for a top 20 result - next time... Now it is time to go home again and work for 2 weeks in the surfshop (Tirolsail.com) cause my uncle is going on holiday.

For all who don't know how such an elimination works: It is a knock out system, where always 2 riders go against each other.The winner advances to the next round (most of the time there's 4 men on the water, so 2 times 2 against each other). There are 3 judges for each pair (so 6 judges). There is a starting sequence of 3 minutes, red flag up for 2 minutes, yellow flag for one minute and then there is 5 minutes heat (first 4 minutes green flag up, last minute of the heat no flag up). In those 5 minutes the competitors have to show as many and as difficult moves as they can. The judges write those moves down and after the, so called heat, they have to give points for the moves, the diversity, style and overall impression. Counted together, that gives a number and the rider with more points wins and advances into the next round.

This system is continued until there are only 4 men left. then they split up in winners- (1,2 place) and loosers-final (3,4 place). With this system there are places from 1 to 4 and then 4 fifth places, 8 nineth places and so on. So there is a so called double elimination where all loosers have another chance to work their way up - although the single counts more and therefore you have to win 2 times for example to advance one place through the double. This is continued until the final heats for places 1-5, where one rider still has the chance to go up until the first place. Although he has to beat the winner of the single two times to win the elimination.

Any questions, let me know

ciao
Rossi

Some pix from the eventsite - more pix and action on www.pwaworldtour.com in the official gallery