The ten riders who made it into todays final fleet qualified over the last few days in three intense qualification rounds as everyone was fighting for a place amongst the last top ten who would battle for the top positions in the Chiemsee Tow-In show as well as 3.000€ prize-money.
The finalists were a bunch of highly credited riders including several times world-champion Gollito Estredo (North/Fanatic), Tonky Frans (Sailloft/Patrik), Steven Van Broekchoven (JP/Neilpryde), Kiri Thode (Starboard), tow-in experts like Adrien Bosson (North/Fanatic) and Antoine Albert (Goya/Goya) as well as the big surprise of this event Jamie Howard (Severne/JP) the rookie from the UK who won the first qualification round.
To guarantee a better show and give the riders the chance to risk more, the race crew decided to grant everyone three runs with the best move counting. Five judges scored the moves according to difficulty and style with a maximum of ten points respectively, whilst the highest and the lowest score have been eliminated.
Antoine Albert, who had the lowest score of all the qualifiers opened with a skopu which is the move he usually goes for in tow-in and which is also a very high scoring maneuvre. Davy Scheffers who was up next spun through a perfect air-funnell into burner with a big claim in the end. With 45 points he scored super high already in the first round and couldn’t top his own score in the upcoming runs. Rick Jendrusch (Severne) from Holland had a terrible looking crash but luckily didn’t get hurt when he tried to up his performance of the qualification round where he went for a perfect tripple funnell.
Adrien Bosson from France showed air-funnell burners in two of his runs and wanted to go for a burner burner in his last attempt, yet changed his mind due to the changing wind directions here in Podersdorf. The shifting breeze definitely didn’t make things easier for the ten competitors and obviously led to some frustration. Belgian top freestyler Van Broeckhoven who was already landing tripple funnells and funnell-burner combination in the past years couldn’t quite get the moves he was aiming for, yet still managed to shake some nice funnell combos out of his sleeve.
Howard tried to repeat his awesome move from the qualification round, but could only go for two rotations instead of three. Yentel Caers (JP/Neilpryde) who is known for his powerful style in both freestyle and tow-in wanted the air-funnell into burner 360 but could only finish the second rotation. Kiri Thode was going for air-funnell burners that was super poppy stylewise and tried to top it up with a double culo in his third run. Unfortunately he couldn’t land the move, which the judges love to see. Gollito went through stylish flaka shakas combos but couldn’t score high enough to become a threat for the top three scored riders.
Outstanding was once more the performance of Tonky Frans who threw several perfect skopus, obviously trying to push for something bigger like a skopu-puneta. Tonkys score of his first run (46) remained the one to beat, yet none of the riders could top the score of the Bonairean.
The final result of the Chiemsee Tow-In Show:
The top 3
Chiemsee has been supporting the EFPT tow-in for the 5th time in a row and always made a great event possible. Since the Surf Worldcup will move to a new venue in 2016, this has been the last Chiemsee Tow-In in Podersdorf for now. We had three amazing action packed days with beautiful weather at an amazing event and are looking forwards to also be part of it in the future.
The next EFPT event will take place in Lanzarote, Spain from the 13th-17th of July 2016.
