NK Freestyle - Lago di Amstel

2009

Laureates Stabroek
EFPT Naxos
NK Lago di Amstel
3 Games - Mastergames
BK Windekind
3 Games - X-Tream Games
BK Freestyle De Punt
Starboard ProKids World Sardinia
King of The Dam
Starboard ProKids
3 Games - Wild Games

As every year Team The Bunch organized Lago di Amstel.  The wind predictions were looking good with a very strong wind of 35 knots.  Almost all the big names from Holland were present and of course also a handful of Belgians.  In the morning the wind was already blowing 25 knots with peaks to 30 knots.  Everybody rigged their smallest sails as the predictions were that the wind would pick up as of 11.00 o’clock.  At 11.00 they started with the first heat of the youth.  The 6 best landed moves would count.  The heats were 6 minutes with a transition time of 2 minutes.  After the first 4 heats of the youth came the 4 heats of the men.  Since my ranking was good in both categories I decided, same as last year, to sail both of them.  The heats went well but due to the strong wind it was sometimes already difficult to land a simple spock.  A lot of them even didn’t make it to the 6 moves – even I didn’t.  I concentrated too much on the more difficult moves and due to the strong wind crashed a lot and usually only had 4 or 5 moves.  Luckily I realized that this was not the right approached so in the finals I decided to do first 6 moves that I controlled better before trying the more difficult ones.  In the youth category we had Pim Van der Borgt and Paul Boef who sailed very well.  In the men’s category we saw a semi final between Davy, Niek, Kevin and Hylke where the last one sailed very strong and tactful and became winner of the heat before Davy.  I also made it to the finals in the men  and youth category.  We god a 10 minutes break and then I had to sail both finals.  They both went very well but after the second final I was so tired I couldn’t speak for the first minutes.  But when I heared that I won both finals I was super happy.  With the men it was a close call with Hylke who came in second followed by Davy and Thijs.  We had an hour break before we started the second elimination.  In the mean time the wind had picked up more so everybody was struggling even with their smallest sail.  The wind was blowing 30 to 35 knots but that didn’t stop anyone  to try and perform their best moves.  We saw a lot of crashes but also some nice ponches, flakas and shakas which showed the high level of freestyle present.  In the semi finals we saw a very strong sailing Davy who had changed his competition technique and Hylke Bakker who took out Niek van der Linden who didn’t sail so well under  these strong wind conditions.  I had again to sail, as in the previous elimination ,two finals after each other.  The final with the youth went very well  and was probably one of my best of the day.  With the men I started well with a puneta 900, ponch, shaka and flaka both sides.  But after 3 minutes I got cramp in my arms and in the last minute I could hardly sail anymore so Davy deservingly won the heat and Kevin ended up 3rd and Hylke 4th.  But overall I finished first in both the youth and men category and also took the title in both categories of Dutch Freestyle Champion.  I was a successful weekend with lots of wind and no rain and a good turnout which made it a fun competition.  A big thank you to the organization and see you next year !!