Monday, July 27, 2009

Spectacular slalom action at Fuerteventura

I like to follow the slalom race action of the PWA worldtour. What a spectacular display of technique from the pros..
Well, apparently the final of the Fuerteventura event was epic. A thousand words can't describe it better than a movie from PWA that (finally) showed an entire race almost from start to finish. You see Josh Angulo coming first at the mark followed by Kevin Pritchard. Kevin does a mistake right after or when closing the jibe (hard to tell) and ends up in the water! The race loses one the toughest competitors...KP said he was in tears after that error. Anyhow, the mythic Antoine Albeau starts chasing Angulo, he passes him and literally smokes him and Dunkerbeck too who was behind him. At the end Antoine pulls a gigantic leap out of nothing to celebrate the victory. Unfortunately, the jump was not caught on video. You can see only when Albeau lands it and the crowd goes wow-wow-wow in wonder. Here is a picture of the jump (courtesy of PWA).
What a race!! It would be nice to know which sail size Angulo, Albeau and Dunkerbeck were using respectively. I suspect Antoine was holding down (he is a powerhouse) a bigger sail than Angulo since he literally smoked him. Technique matters also but, come on, Angulo is fast too. Don't tell me the difference was in the board because that's bull$#@.
In any case, chapeau Antoine, you are the best.

2 comments:

DaNewsBlog said...

The jump was caught on the video...at least the landing

TonyWind said...

Hi Clyde, that is what I meant, the most interesting part, namely the take off and the flight, was missed...wish I had seen that on video