After the non-stop action of Slalom X, our freestylers took to the water to show off just how insane high-wind windsurfing freestyle has become. The flat water and strong winds in front of the Rene-Egli center in Fuerte offer the perfect playground to showcase the insane level of the most technical discipline of our sport. We couldn't be prouder of Sarah-Quita and Yentel as they both won their respective disciplines! Congratulations to you both!! 🔥🔥🍾
Women’s
Sarah-Quita faced her toughest challenge ever from an on-form Maaike Huvermann who came into the event with a goal in mind of being the first woman to beat Sarah-Quita in a freestyle contest. Sarah-Quita has incredibly won every event since 2008 but was pushed to the limit in the single elimination final in what was possibly the most impressive women’s freestyle final of all time.
In the double, Maaike was able to beat Sarah-Quita in the first final and give the crowd the pleasure of watching a super-final. Notably, according to PWA records, she is the only woman to have beaten Sarah-Quita in any Freestyle heat since 2008 so this super final was an extreme-high pressure moment for both sailors. During the heat break between the final and the super final, Sarah Quita was able to find her inner-calm, as she has done so many times before, and come back out with a a stellar performance to claim a record-breaking 16th Freestyle World Title, her 27th title in total.
Some words from Sarah-Quita:
“It feels amazing, I think this event, I really saw that Maaike was pushing hard and it has been very close and I feel like she really brought my best sailing out of me in these heats. So it feels really nice to win the event knowing that you sailed your best. At the same time, I think Maaike also deserves it, she sailed amazing. So that’s the hard part of competition. But I think in general for women’s freestyle, it was a really high level. I’ve been in exactly that same position 2 weeks ago and I feel like I can see both perspectives now. I know that Maaike doesn’t have anything to lose being in the Super Final but at the same time, being here and having just this 1 championship chance, I also didn’t have anything to lose and I saw that she was sailing so great, and I couldn’t really play it safe so I went for moves that normally I wouldn’t do in a heat, but now I did and I don’t think it was the cleanest heat or the best heat but I’m still proud of the moves that I put down.
When I came to the beach, I didn’t really see any signs of anything and I thought that this must mean that Maaike had it and when I heard the result, I felt a lot of relief as I do feel a lot of pressure when I compete in freestyle, so today feels amazing.”
Men’s
Yentel Caers was a man on a mission, reveling in his favorite Freestyle conditions in a place where he has shown his incredible form many times before. He came out of the gates firing on all cylinders, never posting a heat score total of less than 35 points all the way through the single elimination.
Despite suffering a nasty leg injury in the quarter final of the single, he headed back out onto the water with a calm mind-set and maxed out with the highest heat score total of the event in the semi-final with an incredible 39.5 points, and then went on to win the single elimination final with a good margin.
In the double elimination, Yentel stayed calm as he watched Jakopo Testa storming through the final heats of the elimination and put on a clinical performance in the final, putting the Fuerte conditions to good use with some massive power moves to clinch the victory in this most important of Freestyle events.
Sam Esteve looked as stylish as ever but suffered from some very tough heat draws, losing out to Steven Van Broeckhoven in the single and an on-form Lennart Neubauer in the double. Sam ended in 13th place.
Tiko Kort and Manolis Chrysopoulos shared 17th place.
Congratulations to everyone who took part in this event, showing us what an incredible variety of tricks are possible on a windsurfer, and to the organization and media crews for bringing us all the fantastic action.
We have a few days break now before the Slalom X and Wave action will return on the final leg of this action-packed Canary Islands PWA tour on August 1st! See you there!
