Day three at the Surf Worldcup in Neusiedl started early for the crew, setting up the course area and the judging boat to guarantee the option for the first possible start at 9.30 am. The wind that was forecasted the strongest for around midday, slowly improved hour by hour and the horn for the semi final of the single elimination went off at 2.45 pm.
One side of the draw saw an Italian battle between Giovanni Passani and Riccardo Marca (North/Fanatic), whilst Tonky Frans (RRD/RRD) had to take on vice European Champion from 2017 Sam Esteve (JP/Neilpryde). It has been a solid fight on both sides of the heat, yet Passani and Frans showed an outstanding performance in the light wind. Sailing on his 5.2 Frans stomped a perfect bonka close to the judging boat, as well as a pasko just to name the highlights. Passani scored big with a super high and stylish culo and a nice kabikuchi, as well as several other powermoves on both tacks. Marca was answering with a solid performance himself, yet couldn’t land the tricks as clean as he probably hoped for.
Giovanni Passani
Esteve and Marca had to give way to their stronger sailing opponents and met in the losers final. Whilst Esteve seemed to struggle with the conditions, that have been going up and down, Marca sailed a great heat with Italian friend Giovanni Passani cheering for him from the boat. He landed konos, culos and burners both tacks and a clean shaka one-handed to defeat the French sailor.
In the winners final both riders, Frans and Passani, showed a strong performance on starboard tack. However Passani was risking a bit too much on porttack, trying to land his kabikuchis and paskos. Frans went through all of his moves with lots of style and control and looked like he had an amazing time on the water on top of that. Whilst the starboard tack score was super close, the Italian rider missed a move in the end on port, which made Tonky Frans the winner of the single elimination.
Riccardo Marca
Results after the single elimination:
1st Tonky Franas
2nd Giovanni Passani
3rd Riccardo Marca (North/Fanatic)
4th Sam Esteve (JP/Neilpryde)
Top 4
With one heat transition, the double elimination has beens started straight away. Due to the dropping wind though, already the second heat had to be cancelled. The riders were kept on stand-by with the possibility to start again on red flag as soon as the wind would improve. Unfortunately it didn’t pick up anymore and the competition was called off by 06.00 pm.
Tow-in Fleet 3:
At 7.00 pm this evening the third fleet of the tow-in qualification was put to work. Valentin Böckler (Gunsails), Tim Ruyssenaars, Loick Spicher (RRD/RRD) and Julien Mas (Gunsails) were the remaining four to fight for the two places in the final. The beach was packed again and the floodlit area in front ot the bach provided a perfect arena for the show.
Stealing everybodys show was once again showmaster from France and tow-in expert Julien Mas who landed a perfect double air burner (9,63 points). Loick Spicher from Switzerland suprised the judges with a clean kono over the wake of the boat (6,75 points), a move that has never been landed in a tow-in competition. Valentin Böckler scored 3,69 points with an air funnell, but couldn’t get the double rotations that he was pulling in the practice. Tim Ruyssenaars seemed to have troubles with the speed and angle and could only mark down a burner with a score of 1,63 due to a bad landing.
Going through to the final from qualification round three are therefor Julien Mas from France and Swiss sailor Loick Spicher!
Since the final consists of eight places, two lucky losers will join the current top six. All the riders, who didn’t make it to the final up until today, will get the chance in the next days to improve their own scores in another qualification round.
Strong south westerly wind is forecasted for tomorrow and we’ll hopefully get the chance to continue with the double elimination. Stay tuned!