The 2008 PWA Costa Teguise World Cup – Day Three

Jose Estredo delivers a fatal blow to Marcilio as he stands poised to take the event lead, while Sarah-Quita Offringa tenaciously dispatches her rivals to defend her first position stronghold.

The single elimination finalists

Taty inverted

Laure Treboux fights through the heats

The Lanzarote wind machine was once again turned to full power for another day of freestyle carnage in Costa Teguise. With a full double elimination in the bag, day three turned up the heat to deliver another successfully completed single elimination.

Men’s Single Elimination 2

The opening round progressed in a strengthening breeze, with the sailors opting for lower sliding moves over the bigger aerial manoeuvres seen the previous day. Purely by chance, Taty Frans (Starboard, North Sails) advanced to face his brother, Tonky (F2, Gaastra) in round two, producing an epic Frans head-to-head.

The subsequent brawl was arguably the closest fought heat of the day, and saw Taty nail a super technical spock 900. Tonky replied with a polished assault, including a sky-high shaka off the rolling swell out back. After much deliberation, the judges awarded Taty the (2-1) victory.

The quarter finals saw upset at the hands of German freestylers Normen Gunzlein (JP, NeilPryde), and Andre Paskowski (Fanatic, North). The pair, seemingly hell bent on victory, lay waste to Ricardo Campello (JP, NeilPryde) and event leader Marcilio Browne (Mistral, Gaastra) to advance into the semi final.

Also reserving their spots in the final four were Jose Estredo (Fanatic, North Sails), who defeated Antxon Otaegui (JP, NeilPryde), and Kiri Thode (Starboard, Gaastra), who put a premature end to Taty Frans’s elimination run.

The semi final trampled all known boundaries to the floor, to serve up a hefty dose of freestyle mayhem. Gunzlein lined up against Estredo and Paskowski took on Thode. Casting early nerves aside, Paskowski pieced together a comprehensive heat, which included a funnel diablo in the ankle deep water opposite the judges’ tower. Unphased, Thode stepped up, unleashing combination carnage on Paskowski in his seemingly effortless style. Thode advanced.

In the other half of the draw, Gunzlein was forced to delve deep into his sizeable artillery to try and match Estredo’s contorted aerial rotations. Estredo’s sustained barrage of trickery would eventually cripple Gunzlein, who simply couldn’t reply to moves like Estredo’s double one handed punetas. Estredo advanced.

The elimination final pitched Estredo against Thode in a heavy weight freestyle duel. The heat brimmed with insane aerial action. Estredo busted out air flaka diablos while Thode spun through dizzying double spock cana bravas. There was literally nothing between the two sailors. On the final horn, there was a tense wait before the judges eventually awarded the decision in favour of Estredo.

In the all German Losers final, Paskowski and Gunzlein almost redefined the word slick with their perfect sliding moves. Paskowski hurled himself into death defying shakas and Gunzlein got technical with funnel 360 combinations. Eventually Gunzlein edged ahead to claim third place, and Paskowski settled for a well deserved fourth.

Women’s Single Elimination 2
 
The eight strong women’s freestyle fleet was quickly narrowed down to a semi final consisting of Daido Moreno (North Sails) versus Laure Treboux (Fanatic, North Sails), and Iballa Moreno (North Sails) versus Sarah-Quita Offringa (Starboard, NeilPryde).

The Moreno’s battled in their heats, but failed to match Offringa and Treboux’s more technical switch moves, setting up a rerun of day two’s double elimination final between Treboux and Offringa.

Treboux’s consistency dwindled under the pressure of the final, while Offringa raised her game to a whole new level. In a run that included; a shaka, air flaka, eslider, funnel and a grubby diablo to name but a few, Offringa convincingly took down her opponent. Treboux took second.

The losers final was won by Daida Moreno, who had to do little more than a handful of moves to dispatch her sister Iballa, who struggled to find her rhythm.

This single elimination will only count towards the official scores when the double elimination is successfully completed tomorrow. Be sure to tune into day four to see how the remainder of this chapter pans out.