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PWA Fuerteventura 2015
The first day of the PWA Freestyle Fuerteventura World Cup saw extreme conditions, with wind speed up to 40 knots and extremely choppy waters, everybody had to push their limits to the fullest. I was using my Severne Freek 3,6 and SWAT 3,3, together with my Starboard flare 81. I was happy to show consistent heats landing spocks, grubby, flaka’s, shaka’s, loops and more. After loosing the semi-final against an amazing sailing Sarah-Quita I was happy to win the losers final against Arrianne Aukes and get a 3rd place in the first single elimination of the event!
On the second day of the PWA Freestyle Fuerteventura World Cup, the mens and women’s double elimination got completed as far as top 5 for the women and top 6 for the men. As I got a 3rd place in the single elimination I did not have to sail yet.
The third day of the PWA Freestyle Fuerteventura World Cup it was howling again, but this time there was (slightly) flatter water, which definitely suits me better! First up I had to face up Yoli de Brendt to defend my third place. I sailed a solid heat, landing all moves I wanted too, which also made me win the heat and secure the 3rd place. As I was happy to be on the third position, I felt no pressure battling with Oda Johanne for the second place. This actually helped me to sail an ever better heat and made me win this heat too! As I was super already stoked with my second place, I wanted to try some more radical moves like kono’s, burners and other power moves in the heat against Sarah for 1st place. As I’m not yet consistent in landing those, I had quite a lot of crashes in that heat and Sarah-Quita was able to win with a comfortable lead pulling out sick burners, culo’s and other sick moves. After the double was completed, the PWA started directly with the second single elimination. Again I was able to sail good heats, this time I was unfortunately missing a move in the semi-final against Oda Johanne which made me loose the heat. Once again I was able to win the losers final against Arrianne Aukes and secured the third place for the second single elimination. The second double elimination was started but there was no time the finish it.
The fourth day of the PWA Freestyle Fuerteventura World Cup saw lighter conditions and we were able to go on with the second double elimination. First I had to face Arrianne Aukes to defend my third place. After sailing my best heat of the competition I was happy to win the heat and get another third place. Knowing I was on the second place at the moment I felt quite some pressure, I was still able to sail a good heat, but getting it wrong with my flaka a few times made me miss 2 moves on the outside, however, also Oda Johanne missed 2 moves. After a very tight heat, I lost the heat with 0,5 point in a 2-1 decision. But still I’m extremely happy with my third place in the second double elimination.
On the final day of the PWA Freestyle Fuerteventura World Cup there was the third single elimination completed. At the start of the day Oda and myself were on a shared second place as we both had a third and a second place in the double eliminations. Once again I was happy to get in the semi-final. In the semi-final I had to face Oda Johanne again, which meant this heat would lead to who get the second and who get the third place in this event and overall. As Oda sailed an awesome heat landing very good moves, she won the heat, advanced in the final and got the 2nd place for the event. I was able to win the losers final again getting another third place.
At the end I am super stoked with my result, being third overall in the womens for the second time and become PWA Youth Freestyle Champion for the third time in a row! 🙂 🙂 🙂
A big thanks to …
- Rene Egli Windsurfcenter for a organising a great event,
- my sponsors : Starboard, Severne, Prolimit, Maui Ultra Fins, Zeil- en surfcentrum Brouwersdam, Urban Beach and ContinentSeven
- my family and friends for their support
Can’t wait to hit the water again to train fullpower for next season!!!
Blog winter
Over the winter I have been training as much as possible to up my freestyle level. During the periods at home, I unfortunately didn’t have a lot of wind and had to focus on school. Luckily I had some good wind during the first week of the christmas holiday at Brouwersdam. As there was no more wind in the forecast for Brouwersdam any more and a lot of wind predicted in Leucate, we drove there to have some good days on the water. I was on the water for 4 out of 5 days, and the only day I wasn’t sailing was because it was too windy :P. The other days were either on a overpowered 3,6 or 3,3 but I still learned a lot and I was happy to see the place.
After this I had a few sessions at home but not as much as I would have liked. In May I could plan a full month sailing in Sa Barra. I sailed just over half of the period I was there, the conditions are really nice to learn new moves and learn to land them in more difficult conditions. There is a really big flat area with good wind and a area with chop with a little bit more wind just in front of the center. I learned about 6 new moves 🙂 🙂 🙂 and I was able to prepare fully for the competition season that’s coming up very soon now! Unfortunately there is only one event for the girls in the PWA this year, but I’m going to try to the best I can!
PWA Sylt pricegiving 2014
Hi!
I didn’t plan going to go to Sylt at first, as I thought the price giving would not be in Sylt this year. But then I checked my mail on saturday evening and saw a mail from the PWA saying that the price giving would be tomorrow at 15.30 in Sylt. With just 21 hours to go, my mom and I packed some stuff and jumped into the car. We arrived at about twelve in the morning on sunday so we still had some time to walk around and enjoy. At the end I didn’t have a lot of time in Sylt, but I enjoyed every moment I was there.
I got my trophy’s for becoming 3rd in the women’s freestyle and youth world champion in the women’s freestyle. There were lot’s of crowds, the atmosphere was great and it was nice to see some friends before everybody’s leaving for winter training!
After the price giving we left home straight away, because school started at 8.25 the next day ….
I am super happy with my result and the experiences I had this year: Bonaire….. Fuerte….. the indoor…… and Sylt.
The winter in Holland is coming slowly, and hopefully so is the wind! I’m super motivated to train as much as possible!
-Maaike
PWA Indoor Poland 2014
PW
A Warsaw Indoor World Cup!
Summer holiday is over and I went back to school, well at least for one day. One day at school and straight to something really exiting, rare, awesome and sick: the PWA Warsaw Indoor World Cup Poland 2014!
Indoor windsurfing, is that possible? – Yes, it is! It basically means we are sailing in a pool! The last time, there was an indoor, has been 8 years ago, in Gent, Belgium. This year it’s in the national stadium of Poland, right in the middle of Warsaw! The event took 4 days of which 3 with windsurfing action! In 3 days there where at least 35.000 visitors! The stadium had the biggest pool ever being 90 m long, 33 meters wide and 34 fans giving us wind.
The 4th of September and the first day of the competition was just a day of traveling, registration, getting the gear ready and meeting some new people. It’s really nice to meet so many people, you actually know by name, but not personal. Normally its just one or two disciplines at the same time, now everybody is here: slalom, jump and freestyle, man and woman! 🙂
There were a lot people that had to train, so the first training sessions were at 8 in the morning. Luckily the freestyle wasn’t up first and I had some time to sleep. I came to the stadium around 10. The fans needed more rest than expected, so the training sessions took a lot of more time, than first planned… So at the end the PWA was forced to skip the women’s freestyle training as we didn’t compete on Saturday evening and all the other disciplines did. I was a bit up disappointed because I was so much wanting to sail in the pool! It was amazing to see there were so many people working to get this event really nice. There were lots of huge cameras, lots of people and not to forget there was some great action by everyone! I enjoyed the show a lot!
As there wasn’t much time to train in the pool Saturday, we were starting again at 8 in the morning. I was really exited, not only because its awesome to sail in a pool in a huge football stadium, but also because the guys didn’t do super difficult moves and some where even crashing things like spocks, so I was a bit scared to not be able to land any move what-so-ever. I had my first run, didn’t crash in the start! Yes! The jump training was still going on so I couldn’t do a move yet. But I was getting the feeling, and by the time the jumping girls where done, I landed spocks, grubby and puneta’s! Yesyesyes, I was ready! After a day of waiting it was time to get ready for competition! I never felt this nervous getting on my wetsuit, I got the gear ready and the show could start! First the introduction of the riders, this was awesome again! Huge camera’s were filming us, people were cheering and I was having great fun! Freestyle was up first so I kind of run to my gear, got it to the starting line and here we went. My first run wasn’t so good, I was so nervous and I didn’t have enough speed, so let’s forget about this one. On the way back I again didn’t have enough speed to do a puneta, so I tried a eslider instead, halfway I was looking back when sliding and I saw I was a bit too close to the edge of the pool and I had to crash to make sure not to fall out…. At least I didn’t end up falling out, only half of my sail did while throwing down a fence with a PWA flag on it. I made the crowd’s laugh a bit so it’s alright. I lost lot’s of my nerves on my second run, I was able to land a perfect spock! On the way back I did a switch Vulcan, not completely what I wanted it to be, but anyway better than nothing! With these moves I became 3rd in the women freestyle competition. This day was one big roller coaster, in which happened so much! The feeling to do your moves in front of so many people is unbelievable and there are no words for it!
Sunday was just a day of fun and relaxing for me basically. There were a lot of watersports going on in the stadium like sailing, waterpolo, wakeboarding and the Dunkerbeck Speed Challenge, but I didn’t compete as I only had my freestyle kit anyway.
I have never seen a event organised this well, I really felt like a professional athlete going to the Olympics! I will never forget this event!
Thanks to all organisers, sponsors, family and friends for everything!
A dream came true!
Maaike
Naxos, august 2014
The PWA c
alender is finished for the overall ranking freestyle women. The only event left for this year is the indoor in Poland. The indoor in Poland doesn’t count for the overall ranking, which means that my overall 3rd place overall is for 99% sure… Why 99%?, well there still is the event in Margarita on the PWA calender, but as the political issues don’t seem to have changed, it is not likely that the event will be organised in 2014 .
I am super stoked knowing I am now on the overall 3rd place in the second year on tour, so I started my trip to Naxos more motivated as I ever was and ready to train even harder.
The trip to Naxos was quite long, since there is no direct flight going from Holland to Naxos. So we went from Düsseldorf to Mykanos by plane and from Mykanos to Naxos with a ferry the next day. The wind wasn’t strong, so we had enough time to settle down, give my foot a bit more rest and chill a bit. At the end the chilling turned more intro stressing, because the apartment we booked was overbooked and there was no other place for a respectable price… lucky enough Stam (the owner of the windsurf center) was with us, and helped us out finding another apartment..
Laguna beach park is the perfect spot for freestyle, it offers lots of different conditions. In 3 weeks time I have been using my 3.6 up untill 4.8. Even though the wind shifts a lot in force, the wind is still really stable. Not only the wind is perfect to improve your windsurfing skills. There is a big lagoon that offers flat water and choppy water, and there is a small lagoon that has some big chops with big periods coming in.
I have been training lots of moves, most of them new, like kono, shaka, shove-it and moves on my less favourite tack. I also trained moves I can do and make them more consistant. I improved my skills, learned a lot and had a really good time!
Thanks everybody for the help, the hospitality and the awesome time. Movie coming up this weekend.
Now let’s get ready for a really exiting experience: The PWA Warsaw indoor! 🙂 EXITED!
PWA Fuerteventura 2014
Summer holidays started and I was straight of to Fuerte! Full of energy and motivation I was ready to start the 2nd PWA World cup of the year!
It was great to see everybody again and see everybody rip the waters of Fuerteventura!
The conditions have been really weird in the first week… I had 3 days of no wind, I used my 3.6 just once and my most used sail was 4.4. I had some nice earlybird sessions in the lagoon together with Heleen at the beginning of the week to warm up and get the feeling back of all the moves, since I didn’t sail in Holland after the world cup on Bonaire…After a few days I was only sailing in center 1 to get used to the chopy and gusty conditions there. Starting to land new moves like shove-it’s, airflaka’s and switch moves to the outside, I felt I was getting a lot more comfortable in the chop…
A few days before the PWA Freestyle started I crashed badly on an Airflaka…. I landed wrongly and hurt my both feet. I took some rest 3 days before the event, but my feet didn’t seem to improve so I went together with Arrianne, who crashed really hard on a ponch (she wasn’t able to walk and had to skip the competition), to a local doctor to get things checked. At the end it wasn’t something really bad and I could stil sail without making it worse, it only hurted quiet a lot with sailing.
In the single I was a bit unlucky since they make up the single based on the ranking of last year. As rankings have been changed a lot since last year. I was really unlucky to be up against Oda straight away. The conditions were going all over the place and it was hard to choose what sail to rig. I rigged my 3.6 and 4.0 at the end. Just one heat before my heat the wind dropped and I wasn’t planing on 4.0 anymore. Lucky enough I could borrow Dieter’s 4.4. As I didn’t sail for 3 days, still feeling my feet a lot and not having my own sail. I wasn’t able to sail a really good heat.
The double went a lot better, my feet were feeling better, the conditions were better and I had a good warm up session. I managed to sail some solid heats in which I landed 4 moves on both tacks. At the end Yoli was sailing really good and I didn’t in the heat against her so she won. This gave me a 6th place in the PWA Fuerteventura.
There wasn’t enough wind and so no time to do another single and double elimination for the girls. This made Olya and me on a shared overall 3rd place. Lucky enough there was enough wind later to do a sail-off. The wind wasn’t perfect and it wasn’t as choppy as the days before. I managed to land 2 good and 1 half move to the outside and 4 good moves going in. As Olya didn’t seem to have a lot of power or a too small sail and crashed lots of her moves I won the sail-off heat, which gave me an overall 3rd place in the PWA Woman Freestyle 2014!!!!
I have learned a lot this trip and I am super stoked with my 3rd overall place! I still can’t believe it! Congratz to Sarah-Quita for her 7th world title and Oda Johanna for her 2nd place!
Thanks everybody who helped me going to the doctor, helping me out caddying, borrowed me some equipment or anything whatsoever!Thank youuuu!!!!
PWA Bonaire 2014
Sardinia, May 2014
Hi, I finally have the time to write a report from my trip to North Sardinia. I had a super nice 3 weeks in Sardinia with a lot of new moves, crashes, pain, laughs and happiness. Did a lot of windsurfing, supping, relaxing and more!
.PWA Sylt, Youth world champion women 2013
. After finishing 6th at Brouwersdam, I was ranked 6th overall and so first in the youth ranking of 2013. So “of course” we decided to go to Sylt the last weekend of the event for the pricegiving.PWA Brouwersdam 2013
