European Freestyle Pro Tour Lanzarote - Day 2
by EFPT 5 Jul 2018 21:55 PDT
4-7 July 2018
European Freestyle Pro Tour Lanzarote: Day 2 © Gwen Marche
At day two of the EFPT Lanzarote, Adrien Bosson (North/Fanatic) from France has been crowned the victor of the first double elimination after an exciting superfinal against freestyle machine from Belgium, Yentel Caers (JP). The spot at Costa Teguise delivered perfect conditions with strong wind and mast-high wavesets and the top level sailors in attendence, could showcase their dominance.
Before the final heats were staged however, there have been some great comebacks after the first single elimination. Adam Sims (Patrik/Sailloft) from the UK, who ended up in a rather disappointing 17th position yesterday, proved his real potential in today's conditions. The Brit was not only showing a strong porttack, landing a crazy-pete, pushloops, paskos and big forwards, but also a perfect starboardtack with spock culos, double culos, huge konos and even a triple culo in his heat against former world-champion Dieter Van der Eyken (Severne/Severne). Sims dominated in four heats, taking down Robin Van Linden (Patrik), Julian Wiemar (Severne/Starboard), Adrian Beholz (Sailloft/Patrik) and fellow countryman Nic Hibdige. Only the Belgian top rider Van der Eyken could stop the UK freestyler in the end.
Van der Eyken marched through on his side of the draw, sending Corto Dumond (Starboard/Severne), Mattia Fabrizi (Patrik) and Neil Cukier back to the beach, to be then defeated by local rider Tonky Frans (RRD/RRD). The Bonairean who lives on the island, was on a mission today and showed a great form. The RRD rider was landing double power moves as well as crazy jumping maneuvers like one footed backloops, bongkas, pushloops and double forwards just to name a few and could succeed over Francesco Cappuzzo (RRD/RRD), who was the one to make his way up to face Frans. The young Italian put together a great heat but it was not enough to get past his team-mate.
Current tour-leader Frans showed some serious determination of working his way up to the podium, but had to face French sailor Antony Ruenes who landed some of the highest scoring moves today. Ruenes stomped an absolutely sick one handed burner into one handed burner, the most tweaked pushloops and some of the cleanest shifties we have seen in this event. Ruenes could get past Anoine Albert (Goya/Goya) to progress into third place, but couldn't defeat Yentel Caers (JP), despite marking down a highscoring heat of 40,58 points on the judging sheets.
The final battle between Yentel Cears and Adrien Bosson, two of the events best performers, put on a show that was from another planet. Caers and Bosson displayed a firework of moves: the Belgian had a double culo, double burner and air bob culo to count on starboard tack and a pasko, bonka and perfect shifty on starboard. Bosson answered with some big moves himself landing a double culo, air funnell into burner and burner no handed on starboard and a clean shifty, kabikuchi and backloop on porttack. Caers could win with one of the highest scoring heats of the event (44,20 points), which led to a superfinal! The two riders knew it was all or nothing and more than 4.000 people watched the livestream of the finals.
The ultimate heat of the day was something else. Caers and Bosson sailed powerful, smart and put on one of the best shows the EFPT had ever seen. The atmosphere on the beach was electric when the battle began. Both Bosson and Caers crashed only one out of 13 moves that they were going for and how amazing were those moves: perfect shifties and paskos on the way out and double burners, double culos and air funnell burners coming in, just to name some of the highlights. The two sailors kept overtaking each other move by move and we could hear the excitement in the livestream booth, with Marco Lufen (Fanatic/North) stating that this heat felt like watching a head-on-head horse race. In the end Adrien Bosson could win over Caers with the highest scoring heat of the whole competition (45,07 points).
The top three after the double elimination:
1st Adrien Bosson (North/Fanatic)
2nd Yentel Caers (JP)
3rd Antony Ruenes
We are looking forward to more action in the second single elimination tomorrow!
For more information and results click here.