Last Sunday 30-10-2011 the yearly freestyle competition "Man of the Dam" was held at Brouwersdam. Guys and girls up till 18 years old can attend this well known competition event which is already held for the 6th time! Last year I participated as well and ended up 1st with 5 other competitors due to the wind which let us down during the day.
The wind forecast for this year looked really good, 20 knots side shore wind! A lot of competitors ( 38 young kiters) registered for the event. The skippers meeting was at 10:45 and the first possible start at 11:00. There was an international judge team assembled, head judge was Youri Zoon (world champion 2011) supported by Christophe Tack (3 times Belgian Champ) and 2 others. The wind was still pretty light and slightly offshore but it was good enough to start the competition.
Everybody obviously went out with big kites, I was riding my Flysurfer 15m speed 3 and my first heat went pretty good, I started with a blind judge 3 followed by a Frontmobe and some other handle passes. There were three people in one heat and two of them went to the second round. During the heats the speaker (Max jr) really did a splendid job and enthusiastically explained to the crowd what was happening on the water and praised the riders for their tricks.
I made it trough my first 3 heats as first runner up, then the wind let us down and it was getting less and less….finally the organisation unfortunately had to cancel the competition, just like last year.
The winners announcement was around 5 o'clock, the judges made a top 3 based on what they had seen during the heats. Before handing over the prizes, Youri Zoon stated that the level of expertise was high and was pleased to see such new talent performing so well.
The results:
1. Dylan van der Meij
2. Remco Klabbers
3. Leon Nahr
I am super pleased with the result, it was again a really nice and well organized event, with a lot of very friendly people, too bad the wind died though but it was definitely fun!
For the full report check out The Access website
Photo's by: Reinout Smit and Henry Caspers
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Autumm 2011
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