Austrian Windsurf Championship: Tricks and Slides at the first Parkstyle Event ever
Chris Sammer in front of Daniel Bikich and Lorenz Forstenlechner
Lake Neusiedl, near Vieanna was the place to be on last Sunday: With winds gusting up to 50knots the first so called “slopestyle” on the water was held. The first winner of this new format of windsurfing competition is Chris Sammer, the former PWA – and recently EFPT-Rider. Second became Daniel Bikich, who organized the event together with Tom Hartmann. The newcomer Lorenz Forstenlechner came on third position by impressing not only the judges with radical newschool manoeuvres.
New Competition format: Parkstyle
Within other extreme-sports like snowboarding, skateboarding, wakeboarding or BMX the so called “funpark” is already an established discipline, where the contestants have to go through the course which contains different obstacles. Tom Hartmann and Daniel Bikich, both EFPT-Riders, Naish Teammates and very good friends realized that within their sport this kind of discipline is still missing and therefore created the Parkstyle.
In Podersdorf, the Riders had one minute each to enter the course. As soon they went over the first obstacle, the “Red Bull Slider”, the run was started. There was no time limit but the contestants were not allowed to hesitate between the following two mandatory freestyle moves, one on each tack. Style and difficulty of the move (each move was given a certain score, which was published to the riders in advance) were judged on an almost equal level. Only two out of three runs were counted, so that the 14 Riders could also risk, trying some of their high difficulty tricks.
Finally the wind kicked in with force 8 – 9
While on the first weekend, the lack of wind forced the parkstylecrew to come up with some fun-programme for the contestants – the SONY VAIO video contest, this time the wind came with a bang! Gusts of 80-90km/h made the riders go wild! Planning forwards over the Red Bull Slider performed by Sammer as well as amazing flatwatergoiters by Forstenlechner and Matissek were only some of the radical moves that impressed not only the spectators but also the judges.
Next year again!
The mainly young contestants (Lorenz Forstenlechner (20) on 3rd and Max Matissek (19) on 4th position) were content with the new contest and see a lot of potential in the new Parkstyle format.
Results:
Place | Rider | Segelnummer | Sponsoren | |||
1 | Chris Sammer | AUT-291 | F2, North, O´Neill, ION, Olympus, Hangloose | |||
2 | Daniel Bikich | AUT-12 | Naish, Hangloose, s-core | |||
3 | Lorenz Forstenlechner | AUT-7 | F2, Naish, Boardshop |
4 | Max Matissek | AUT-97 | F2, North, Rip Curl, ION, Olympus, Hangloose | ||
5 | Matthias Höller | Hangloose | |||
6 | Alex Seyss | AUT-61 | Naish, Move-Surfstore, MFC, FreestyleUSA | ||
7 | Mario Inthal | AUT-117 | Kelag, Hotel Auersperg | ||
8 | Florian Sperl | AUT-550 | Naish, Surf Service Graz | ||
9 | Tom Hartmann | AUT-44 | Naish, Protest, Camaro, Smith, Koester Fins, FreestyleUSA, Surfstore | ||
10 | Manuel Grafenauer | AUT-259 | Fanatic, North, FreestyleUSA, Hangloose | ||
11 | Mauricio Alvarez | AUT-86 | Tabou, Gaastra, UpsideDown | ||
12 | Tom Föda | Naish, Move-Surfstore, MFC | |||
13 | Berni Schermaier | AUT-128 | Tabou, Gaastra, Sport-Schneider | ||
14 | Stefan Heschl | Starboard, Severne |