Wind or no-wind. The forecasted light South wind left us hoping for a local effect that would make it stronger and make a freestyle competition possible, yet it didn’t fill in which left organisers, crew and riders disappointed afterall.
To keep the mood up and the riders busy there was another workout session organised on the beach with coach Sylvain from Prepa&Phys, who have their head-quaters here in Six Fours les Plages. A motivated bunch of riders accepted the challenge, all in front Yentel Caers the North/Fantic rider from Belgium who doesn’t seem to be able to sit still for more than ten minutes. It was good to see though, how the riders appreciated the sessions and that they see the benefits of training also off the water to keep injury free and get stronger more and more.
In the afternoon everybody could get involved in a SUP race with prizes to win from several event sponsors. Under the call ‘no rules’ the boys looked like they had quite a bit of fun out on the water whilst trying to push each other off the inflatable Fanatic SUPs. Victory could once again take Adrien Bosson, North/Fanatic international rider and son of the organiser Fred Bosson, in front of Tim Roumian and Yentel Caers.
SUP race finalists
In the afternoon a tow-in supersession with ten riders was set up to provide a show for the big amount of specators on the beach. This discipline once again proved to be a real crowd-magnet which couldn’t have been better as we went into the prize-giving for the tow-in competition yesterday and the overall EFPT ranking for 2014 straight afterwards.
With three counting freestyle events, yet only one event with a counting result it wasn’t the best year for the tour condition-wise. After the start of the season with the 10.000€ event in Podersdorf at the Surf Worldcup which saw rather light wind, the overall ranking hasn’t been changed after the unlucky time in Lanzarote and now here in France. Once again it has been proven that this can be the beauty and the curse of the sport we love and one can organise perfect event set-ups, yet we can’t control the wind.
Gabriele Varruccius switch chachoo in the tow-in
The top three from Podersdorf therefor remain the top three of the European Freestyle Pro Tour overall in 2014. Third place goes to highly talented and impressive young rider Jacopo Testa (RRD) from Italy who showed a decent performance in the lighter wind in Austria. Second place goes to Everon Tonky Frans (Tabou/Gaastra) from Bonaire, who currently lives in Lanzarote. Tonky convinced the judges with his fluent style even on his biggest freestyle sail. First place in the European Freestyle Pro Tour overall ranking and therefor European Champion for the fourth time (2009/2010/2013/1014) is once again Steven Van Broeckhoven (JP/Neilpryde) from Belgium. Steven is one of the guys on tour who is always willing to make a competition happen and is always up for a good challenge which makes him a great athlete. Next to bringing a lot of input and feedback to the EFPT he is also always living the example of a sportsman- clearly inspiring the younger riders on tour. We are delighted and proud to crown him as the European Freestyle Pro Tour Champion and are looking forward to see more of his extraordinary freestyle skills at our events in the future.
Steven stated: ‘I am really happy to win the overall title again! Even though we didn’t have wind on the last two events, it is still a first place and the conditions in Podersdorf have been challenging and most of the best riders of the world were there. So I am super happy to win the tour again!’
The European Champion 2014 – Steven Van Broeckhoven
Jacopo Testa from Italy takes 3rd place overall 2014
With a huge amount of people watching the prize-giving, the third EFPT event at the European Freestyle Expression ended with a beautiful sunset and the outlook for the EFE 2015, where we are hoping for the return of the storms that hit Six Fours les Plages in 2012.