Tow-in: Spectacular finale in front of the historic centre of Vieste
Ten riders qualified for the final, which was held on Saturday afternoon in front of the historic centre of Vieste: Lennart Neubauer, Bodhi Kempen, Dudu Levi, Yentel Caers, Kiri Thode, Tigo Kort, Youp Schmit, Foivos Tsoupras, Jamie Howard and Tim Gerdes.
Unfortunately, Dudu Levi was unable to start as he injured his foot in the last run of the qualifying round.
This left nine riders in the race, with Youp Schmit (GA-Sails/Tabou) the favourite. The rider from Bonaire scored the highest number of points in qualifying and is always a crowd favourite thanks to his impeccable style. Unfortunately, Youp struggled to land his moves in the final, almost landing on the beach at one point.
Tow-in showman from Kiel Foivos Tsoupras (Duotone) continued his exotic journey off the beaten track in the final. He is always good for a surprise, which he proved again recently with a third place in the tow-in competition at the surf festival on Fehmarn. But after crashing on a high skopu, he was forced to perform a safe move to at least fill his scorecard. With a clean air flaka shaka, which brought him back into the top ranks, he attempted another skopu in his final run - unfortunately without success. The German therefore had to settle for fifth place.
Dutchman Bodhi Kempen continuously improved his repertoire in the final. He started with a culo, then a wet double culo and finished the final with one of the cleanest double culos ever performed in a tow-in competition. With 8.67 points, he still had to settle for third place, as Great Britain's Jamie Howard was able to perform a 9.33-point skopu with a little wind in the bay to secure second place.
First place went to the Greek 2023 European champion, Lennart Neubauer.
The 20-year-old had seen enough to know that skopus were feasible in the current conditions. He decided to spice it up with a funnel at the end to show how much speed he could get out of the first trick. With 9.67 points, he took the win with a Skopu into Funnel.
HERE you can see the tow-in highlights in the video:
Three ladies competed in the Tow-in
Maaike Huvermann showed clean culos in the risky regular stance at the tow-in and won the tow-in ahead of the two German ladies Lisa Kloster and Elena Dominick. Like Foivos Tsoupras, Lisa Kloster (MB-Boards/Sailloft) also learnt the tow-in at the German Freestyle Battles and represented the scene in Vieste. The current leader of the women's freestyle tour rotated through several funnels, but initially struggled to get the tow-in spark to ignite, as we are used to seeing from her at previous events in this discipline. She then flashed it again in the very last run when she performed the only spook in the entire competition so far.
The long wait for Foilstyle wind was worth it
After the tow-in discipline had already been completed on Saturday, today, on the last day of the event, it was time for the foiling showdown. On the first two days of the event, there was only a gentle breeze on the beach in Vieste, which was not even strong enough for foiling. Foil-style heats can be started from a wind force of around twelve knots.
Yesterday evening, following the tow-in final, the first rounds of the single elimination could already be completed - today it got really exciting in the final rounds.
The decreasing wind was not enough for a complete double elimination and the FPT finished the tour stop in Vieste at around 5 pm with a full single elimination.
Lennart Neubauer dominates in foil style
In principle, there is not yet as much choice of manoeuvres in this young discipline as there is in classic freestyle on the fin. The fact that the race organisers have increased the number of moves that count towards the overall ranking in foil style from two to three moves per side this year didn't make things any easier for the riders. It was the shifty, which Neubauer practised extensively on the foil during the winter, that made the decisive difference in this elimination several times. With the risky reverse rotation, he was also able to beat his toughest competitors, the Belgians Yentel Caers (second place) and Steven van Broeckhoven (third place), in the semi-final and final.
There were also high shakas, paskos, even backloops and crouched power moves of all kinds to be seen today. It is both impressive and unusual to see such radical manoeuvres with so little wind. A generally exciting development for the discipline of freestyle.
The incoming swell was particularly interesting today, but at the same time very demanding for the riders on the foils, providing plenty of airtime as well as hard exits, for example during the wobbly switch.
The locals from Brouwersdam, Tim Gerdes and Tigo Kort, coped well with it and completed the top five after the single elimination. If the two young up-and-coming riders from the Netherlands carry on like this and continue to push themselves so hard in foil style, they could cause a few surprises in the young discipline at future events.
In the stream of the Freestlye Pro Tour you can watch all foilstyle heats of today retroactively:
