Rossi @ PWA Podersdorf - Lake Neusiedel / Austria

06 May 2008

We started this season with a new eventformat which is called the “best move” format. It was developed to make the Freestyle show more radical and to bring more action with more overview to the public. Not the amount of moves, but the difficulty and style are what the judges want to see. The moves per tack are limited to a certain amount, depending on the conditions – in Podersdorf with really light winds, the race director extended the heat duration to 10 minutes with 6 moves each tack counting and 3 discards. This means, after 6 moves each tack the judges won’t count your moves anymore…

This makes it a real tactical game… It also helps to make the competition more fair, even in really difficult conditions.

Back to my Podersdorf result… I was seeded 15^th because of my good 4^th place in the EFPT in Tarifa a month ago. In the 48 men fleet, that placed me straight into the second round – I was really happy about that, because it seemed to be really exhausting the first day as many of the heats were cancelled due to not enough wind. Anyway, the new format proofed to be working…

I met an Austrian local, Tom Föda (AUT 315), in the second round. I had a pretty good heat with Double Flaka, Shaka, Switch Chachoo…although there wasn’t really a lot of wind…. And that let me pass into the 3^rd round and set me straight against Jose “Gollito” Estredo – Freestyle World Champion 2006…

On day 5, Saturday, they ran our heat. The conditions were pretty light, but OK – It was right after a little thunderstorm passed by, so the wind shifted to north, which was very sideshore… perfect for the public to see some action very close to the shore! It was a 10 minute heat, 6 moves counting each tack with 3 discards.

Again I had a good Double Flaka, Shaka, but unfortunately was crashing in the Ponch and the Switch Flaka (not so easy with 5,8 and light wind). Anyway, what should I say, the heat duration was 10 minutes and I felt like after 5 minutes it was more than clear that Gollito would leave me no chance at all to win this heat… No doubt, he was sailing amazingly!!

PWA-pressrelease said:

“It could be argued that Roßmeier would have advanced had he been up against most other competitors, showing both depth and diversity in his routine. He was however, pitched against an on form Gollito who had no intension of being knocked out at this stage in the elimination. A no handed flaka Diablo within touching distance of the crowd sealed Roßmeier’s fate, advancing Gollito to the next round.”

Well – that was it for me… I finished in 9^th place and I am very happy with it. A good position for further PWA and EFPT events, as the seeding is always set up through your current ranking in both tours.

Now it is about going back to work!!  We are working on the next edition of the Tricktionary – the great, new Tricktionary 2 and we are in the final phase!

More news soon!

Endresult PWA Podersdorf / Austria 2008:

1. Jose ‘Gollito’ Estredo (Fanatic, North Sails, MFC)
2. Marcilio ‘Brawzinho’ Brown (Mistral, Gaastra)
3. Tonky Frans (F2, Gaastra)
4. Antxon Otaegui (JP, NeilPryde, MFC)

Pix by Sandra Schennach: