02 April 2008

After two years of bad luck with the EFPT (European Freestyle Pro Tour) competition in Tarifa in south of Spain, finally I could make it to the Event and also achieve a good result this year.

There were surprisingly good conditions during Thursday and Friday at the Eventspot in front of Camping Torre de la Pena. It was pretty strong Poniente which is side-onshore from the right. It was very wavy and pretty choppy, we were sailing on 4,7 and 5,2 fully powered up.

I won my first heat was against a brazilian newcomer Samuel Teixeira Francisco – after that I could win against another brazilian, Edvan Souza de Pedro – had some pretty good moves and could enter the 3^rd round where I was set up against Andre Paskowski from Germany, the current European Champion. Seems that it was a close decision as we both were crashing several times. I came to the beach and actually was thinking Andre won, but looking at the results, it said I advanced into the final! My first final Heat was against Kevin Mevissen from Netherlands – I was trying my best, but Kevin was too strong in this heat, which threw me into the loosers-final. There I met Antxon Otaegui from Lanzarote, a very strong sailor, to fight for the 3^rd and 4^th place. I lost this heat and finished the first single elimination in 4^th place. However, one hour later we started the double elimination. That means everybody has a second chance to advance, loose or confirm his place from the single elimination – it’s called the loosers round for the single elimination and after this “double” the result is more accurate. I could relax and wait for my next heat – somebody would come up to my position and try to beat me in a 2 man heat. I was pretty sure Andre would fight his way up and we’d have another heat together, but due to some misunderstandings in his heat against Egor Propretinsky from Russia, he missed and therefore lost his heat. But it wasn’t Egor who finally advanced through quite some heats and ended up against me – A guy from Belgium – Steven Van Broeckhoven– quite a noname on the tour until now, surprised by beating Remko de Weerd and Egor Propretinsky and therefore was set for the fight about the 4^th place against me. It was a tough heat and I crashed too many times in my switch moves, so I lost this heat and was kicked to the 5^th place. In the double elimination, every rider has to confirm his position from the single by winning one heat and advances one place by winning two or more heats. If you loose your first heat in the double you loose one place.

We tried to run another single elimination, as there was wind (Levante) on Saturday. We had almost done two rounds, but then the wind turned too far outside / offshore and was just too gusty to go on with the competition.

Anyway, with the 5^th place I am very happy. It is a good starting position for the further EFPT-events, especially for the next big Event in Podersdorf / Austria.

The final result EFPT Toro Andaluz – Tarifa
1. Normen Günzlein (G-186)
2. Kevin Mevissen (H-79)
3. Antxon Otaegui (E-169)
4. Steven Van Broekhoven (B-72)
5. Michael Rossmeier (AUT-256)

To see how such a competition works - i was filming a heat of my friends Jakub and Remko
http://www.vimeo.com/831645

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