Wednesday 15 February 2012

WWEC

This year the winter was late. It came in Lithuania only in the second part of January. And then began the real winter I mean that it was from -15 to -30 degree in all Lithuania for more than a week. The lakes were covered by ice in a few days and Winter Windsurfing season began.
As you all know windsurfers from Kaunas are very competitive and we can't just go freeriding we need some competition. Thus with the initiative of Giedrius LTU 11 and the help of Winter Windsurfing a race was organized. Winter Windsurfing European Cup.

Traditionally racers from Lithuania, Latvia, Russia and Finland came to enjoy the wonderful spirit of racing in Kaunas. All in all there were 19 competitors - 17 on ice sledges and 2 on Kitewings. 
Saturday wasn't promising - the forecast showed just about 1-1.5m/s wind. Nevertheless jury decide to wait on ice and to see - PERHAPS there will be some wind. But there was none. In the evening we had sauna.
Sunday was looking much better - full 3 m/s. Actually there were about 2-3m/s, but it was enough to start races. Ice condition was interesting - pretty hard ice, covered with about 4 cm of hard snow. Your blades are playing a really huge role in such condition. They should have been narrow and not really sharp - at least the fast guys were saying so. My blades were sharp and wide.
At first we had 2 eliminations on Slalom. In both of them I didn't managed to qualify for Golden heat. My jibes were ok, but I was as slow as a turtle in the straights. All in all I've finished 13th place. I used "Bernoto" ice sledge and 7.0 Simmer Style SC:R. Janis Preiss dominated both races, he left no chances for others. Aleksandrs Leontjevs took both second places and Andrius Sliuburys, rising young star, took the third place.
Then the jury decided to make some Course Racing. I decided to rig bigger sail - Gaastra GTX 8.5. It has really helped me I felt that I was going faster, although I felt that my blades were digging into the ice. On the upwind there wasn't a big difference how big your sail was, but I felt really awesome going downwind - I was overtaking 2-3 guys on every downwind run. Unfortunately they were killing me on the upwind. There were 3 races done and after that I was standing 8th position - pretty good, huh? In course racing Janiss Preiss changed his place with Aleksandrs Leontjevs. The legend from Lithuania, Grand Master, Arvydas Moliusis finished 3rd.
The disapointment of the race was Giedrius LTU 11, the fastest man on ice in Europe, this time he finished 4th in Course racing and 8th in Slalom. I guess he didn't have the correct blades for these conditions. :(

All in all WWEC was a great competition, I gained a lot of knowledge and experience and I'm looking forward to train more.

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