2015 EFPT Lanzarote – Final day overall

by EFPT on 12 Jul 2015 At the EFPT event in Lanzarote the final competition day started with very moody skies but sailable conditions from the morning onwards.

The horn of the first heat of the double elimination went off just before 11.00am and we could run the whole competition through with the sailors being on their 4.8s in the beginning but soon changed down to 4.4s as the wind started to pick up more and more.

One of the riders of the day has definitely been 17-years old Sam Esteve (JP/Neilpryde) from France who impressed with a very high level landing big shakas, burner 360s, air skopus, paskos, culos, no-handed burners and clean air-funnell-funnells. In the challenging conditions with high waves and strong wind he managed to take out Sebastijan Jancovich (Patrik) from Slovenia, Rafa de Windt (F2) from Curacao and was eventually stopped by Jeremy Plüss from Switzerland who was throwing big forwards and shakas as well as stylish konos and funnell combinations in his heats. He worked his way up to a 15th place.

Mattia Fabrizi (North/Fanatic) from Italy who is always a top ten contender but couldn’t quite get the result in that he was wishing for in the first round, marched his way up in the double taking out routine sailor from Germany Adrian Beholz (Fanatic/Sailloft) and Loick Spicher (North/JP) in the following heat. The Italian could not get past Yentel Caers from Belgium though who has been sailing an incredible competition with double culos, double burners, futures, paskos, as well as pushloops, backies and stalled forwards.

Showing a very solid perfomance was also UK freestyler Adam Sims (Sailloft/Patrik) who injured himself on the foot in the single elimination yesterday and mentioned that he was especially struggling with switch moves as well as shakas. Nevertheless, the Brit sailed a strong heat against Marco Vinante (JP) from Italy landing a tweaked shove-it, a planning forward coming in as well as a backloop, a pushloop and a supernice burner 360 to name some of the highlights. The Sailloft/Patrik team-rider could also take down Marco Lufen (Neilpryde/JP) from Germany and Brasilian Hugo de Sousa (RRD/RRD) who was ranked second by the start of this event. The Brasilian struggled with the conditions and Sims could pull most of his moves and the decision of the judges favored him in the end. He was eventually stopped by Yentel Caers which made him end up in seventh place in the second double elimination.

Amado Vrieswijk (JP/Severne) from Bonaire who is one of the strongest competitors on this tour sailed six heats in a row today taking down Antoine Albert, Davy Scheffers, Yentel Caers, Phil Soltysiak (Starboard) and Adrien Bosson (North/Fanatic), yet had no chance to go past Antony Ruenes whose sailing level has been off the scale at this event. Even though Amado landed double culos on the way in and very clean culos also on the way out, pushloops, paskos, air-funnell combos and kabis he couldn’t defeat the Frenchie. Yet (and we have to give him that) he proved to be really pain-free by going for a shifty in his heat against Ruenes and even went for a double shifty attempt which was absolutely massive.

Move of the day though was definitely the shifty of Antony Ruenes in the first final against Tonky Frans. The French sailor launched it off a wave and landed it the cleanest we have seen it in this event, which even let the judges jump off their seats. The level in the final was unreal with both riders going for huge pushloops, clean backloops, burner and funnell combinations and konos. Tonky even launched a double forward but, unfortunately, couldn’t stick it in the end.

Since Ruenes took the win in the first final the riders were sent out to the water again for the super final and the heat that should decide it all. Once again Ruenes proved that it is well deserved for him to be up there on top with all the other pro riders. On one port-tack run, he landed a backie, a huge shifty and clean pasko. Also, Tonky Frans was putting together a great heat with spock-culo and funnell-combos as well as big jumps, yet he couldn’t outgo Antonys performance. The superfinal was decided 5:0 favoring the French sailor.

After winning also the first double elimination, Antony Ruenes is the winner of the EFPT Lanzarote 2015, with Tonky Frans in second and Amado Vrieswijk in third place. Antony stated how stoked he was to win this event especially also by competing against the other strong sailors who were pushing the level to the maximum. This motivated him to also try more radical stuff in the wavy and windy conditions that he really enjoys. He also pointed out that he never won anything so he is super happy about this event win.