BUSY SPRING
CZ FESTIVAL, PWA PODERSDORF, EXAMS
Friday June 15, 2012
The spring has been a busy one for me, so as you may have noticed the updates were rare. Besides the time I spent studying for my university exams (only 2 left now!), I attended a fun party weekend at the SURF Festival in the Czech Republic, finished 9th at the PWA Surf World Cup in Podersdorf, and scored a few nice sessions at Podersdorf too.
I made a good choice a few years ago to sign up to study a degree with the University of London International Programme. It gives me so much flexibility with my windsurfing and travels. I am always able to squeeze a couple textbooks into my already overweight board bags and find a couple hours in the mornings or evenings wherever I am. I can choose to write my exams at universities or institutions in most major cities, and again this year I chose Vienna, as my girlfriend lives there and the dates of the exams are just around the dates of the first freestyle PWA tour stop.
While there, courtesy of WINDSURFER magazine, I had the opportunity to go to the Czech Republic for the SURF Festival to put on a tow-in windsurfing show along with Austrian riders Max Mattissek and Tom Hartmann. It was relaxing and a lot of fun to be at a windsurfing event and not have to compete. The Czech crowds were great and were clearly enjoying the tow-in show. The organizers even asked us to do a couple moves at night lit-up by some spotlights. All in all it was a great atmosphere with all the brands setting up their tents with their gear, all the local sailors meeting up to get stoked for the season, and of course a couple parties and bands playing. Worth checking out is a Slovakian Band whose lead singer is a pretty good freestyler himself: Funny Faces. You can download some of their music off their website: funnyfaces.sk Check out some photos from in the gallery below.
Next up was the 2012 Surf World Cup in Podersdorf. It also featured a separate night tow-in competition. Let me tell you, tow-in is definitely not my talent, and neither is it my friend’s Marco Wedele’s. I lent him a bigger board so it would be easier for him to start, and he crashed so hard on both runs that somehow the side of the nose went into the rocky bottom. I saw him pull a rock out coming out of the water! The forecast for the following day looked like it was our only chance for wind, so luckily a local sailor and good friend of mine Max Brinnich helped me out with a midnight board repair and I was ready to go. I made it to the 3rd round in the single elimination meaning I was in 9th, losing out to Bonairean Bjorn Saragoza. I think we sail against each other at every contest, but this time he had the edge. Without any more wind 9th would end up being my final position, which would be good except that due to only running 1 single elimination it meant I had to split overall ranking points with 8 other riders in the same position. I wasn’t completely pleased with that, but I could feel it fuelling the motivation for some training after my exams. I also didn’t make it into the top 8 final in the night tow-in contest, but the tow-in windsurfing is not where my talent or aspirations lie.
In between the two events above and what seemed like endless time behind the books I scored a few really fun and windy sessions at Podersdorf. Mostly on 4.2 and 4.6, and one day it was even gusting up to 50 knots!!! It was intense freestyle sailing.
The exams went well and the following day I flew out to Tenerife where I’m at now. I got the motivation, I go the wind and waves, and I got a contest in Fuerteventura at the end of July. My focus now is to train some port-tack jumping here in Tenerife before moving over to Fuerteventura and mixing it all up with my freestyle repertoire. More updates soon…
