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| Gran Canaria Wave & Freestyle Worldcup - July 2006 |
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The second event on the PWA-Canaries-Tour 2006 took place on Gran Canaria. Pozo beach is known for his nuclear winds. Therefore everybody prepared for really high wind action. And it really was a windy week - we were able to sail and compete every single day – but the insane high winds never filled in this year.
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By the end we reached 10 races in Slalom (only for men), a full double elimination in waves and two double eliminations in freestyle (only for women). |
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| Personally I wasn’t very well prepared for this event. I had focussed on Slalom for this season and spent most days on this equipment. But as Pozo Izquierdo is one of my favourites places to sail I was still pretty confident to do ok. For me it was a very long and very tiring world cup. Because the conditions weren’t very consistent all sailors were kept stand-by on nearly all days. Means you go to the beach by 9 every morning and rarely leave it before 7 in the evening. |
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But the race director did an exceptional job: without his flexibility to switch frequently between the different disciplines we wouldn’t have to be able to do such a successful event. The downside of that is that I often warmed up for waves in the morning. Then befor e I actually had to compete we switched to freestyle because the waves disappeared. So I warmed up for freestyle again – just to find out a bit later that the slalom racers would go instead of us because the wind had gotten too light…
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| To sum it up: hard work but great contest! And best of all we have seen some new faces in the top ranking of the women fleet. Mainly in freestyle Sarah Quita, a 14-year old Arubian girl, and Laure Treboux from Switzerland. I’m especially happy to see Laure really getting into action. I had to sail twice against her in the semi final. I managed to win twice – but that could have also been the other way round… And then I lost with just half a point to Daida in the final. It couldn’t have been any closer! |
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In waves I simply had to let the locals pass – it’s not easy to compete against people that sail nearly every day on that beach. But the year is not yet over: in Sylt I will have the local knowledge on my side…
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| Results: |
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Women Freestyle: 1. Daida Moreno, 2. Karin Jaggi, 3. Laure Treboux
Women Wave: 1. Daida Moreno, 2. Iballa Moreno, 3. Karin Jaggi
Men Wave: 1. Victor Fernandez, 2. Kauli Seadi, 3. Kevin Pritchard
Men Slalom: 1. Antoine Albeau, 2. Bjoern Dunkerbeck, 3. Kevin Pritchard
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