It was more then a successful weekend at the Cable Wakeboard European Championships at Lido Almere (Netherlands). The sun was shining brightly and 118 riders from 15 countries really enjoyed this competition. Spectacular action was brought to more then 8000 spectators from the riders of each category.
Especially for the German team it was a very successful time – 3 gold, 2 silver and 3 bronze medals were the impressive balance. At the girl´s and boy´s category Anna Laura Brabaender and Frederic von Osten won the first medals for the team.
The girls were ruled by the local rider Mayanka Jansen from the Netherlands who did 2 impressive runs at her home cable! On the second place came Victoria Young from the UK. She was pushed forward from an enormous crowd of British guys at the beautiful beach side.
At the boys it was a very hard decision for the judges! Frederic von Osten from Germany who won the title was in front with 65,83 point followed by Szebasztian Szolath from the Hungarian team with 63,50 points and another local guy Yves van den Hoff.
At the Junior Ladies category Maxine Sapulette showed why she was elected as the rider of the year 2006. With 2 phenomenal runs she was ruling her category! The others had no real chance against her and she had an advance of more then 10 points previous to the second Junior Lady Ginger Pfennings from Germany and the third Vivien Katona from Hungary.
The Israeli Efi Levy won the Junior Men category. It was a very clear result because Efi did 2 impressive runs and showed James Young (UK) and Stephan Kraus (Germany) who is leading the Junior Men.
The most spectacular and most interesting category was the Opens. The spectators could not believe what they saw at the Open Ladies and Open Men category. A phenomenal Pauline Dyrschka - starting for Germany - got the highest position of the podium just before Kinga Horvath from Hungary and Milicia Gluvajic from Serbia. A huge German crowed was putting forward their rider.
At the Open Men the local spectators went totally crazy when Mike Ketellapper was getting ready for his run. It should have been his day – over 8000 people pushed him forward to give his best. And he did it, but crashed in his first run at one of the last obstacles. It seems as if it was not his day - like at the last competitions – in his second lap he also crashed at the first obstacle – the slider. Because of the high risk he wanted to go in this second lap and because of the whole Lido waiting for his crazy tricks the Judges and organisers decided to let him do one more lap to show what he is able to do. Of course this lap was not counted for the scores, but the local people from Almere went totally crazy when he came in the last corner of the track, directly next to the crowed.
At the end it was Nick Davies from UK - who is known as Sick Nick because of his totally mad runs – who won the gold medal at the Open Men. He did more tricks at this Cable then ever seen before and was leading with more then 20 point previous to Laurent Peyrichou from France and Peter Pascal Schmidt from Germany.
The last category was the team scoring. It was a very lean calculation, but at least the German team was leading this scores before the team of UK and the home team of the Netherlands.
All in one the organisers and officials decided that this was the best European Championships that the division cable had ever seen.
Here are some of the nicest shots we made during the weekend.
What a great Beginning for the PROTEST European Championship 2007 at Almere (NL).
In the heat of the Dutch sun the 15 athletes showed amazing tricks and an incredible performance for a good vibration in the audience. With pounding beats and with an "we do it Netherlands-style" attitude performed by the "MC Heroes" Clint and Lorenzo, the 6000 spectators experienced an high-level competition.
The wake-up call for the athletes was at 6 o’clock. Due to the quantity of riders the first run started at 7.30.First the youngest, in the categories Boys and Girls, had to hit the water. Right from the start, it was obvious how high the stakes would be to make it into the next round.Maxine Sapulette (NL), who achieved the rider of the year award 2006 just the night before, put on a monster-run with 71.50 points and showed everybody that she is a class of her own. So she qualified easily to the finals in the category junior-ladies.
In the categorie open-men, Nick Davies (UK), hit the finals with a blast by achieving 79.50 points. The local hero Mike Ketellapper (NL) used his advantage at his "home-cabel" and showed a huge run for 72.00 points. They will compete against Emil Tzolov (BUL), rider of the year 2006, Daniel Fetz (AUT), who just arrived in time at the starting booth by bike and guided by a huge round of applause. Also the actual world-champion Laurent Peyrichou (FRC) made it to the next round.
At the open-ladies it was a real close case. Milica Gluvajic (SER), Pauline Dyrschka (GER) and Mona Stenzel (GER) made it straight to the finals. The European champion, 2006 Kinga Horvath (HUN), Mariane Sandner (GER) had to go through the LCQ (Last Chance Qualification) first.
Sylvia Troselj from Croatia had to give up on her dreams for a medal earlier that day. At the masters-men Vukasin Cupic (SER) and Loic Lebras (FRC) made it easily to the finals. Also in this categorie, Jan Kerkhoven (NL) surprised everybody. The names of the qualified riders will raise the expectations for a thrilling and highly technical mastership-final on Sunday.
At the Open Men the local spectators went totally crazy when Mike Ketellapper was getting ready for his run. It should have been his day – over 8000 people pushed him forward to give his best. And he did it, but crashed in his first run at one of the last obstacles. It seems as if it was not his day - like at the last competitions – in his second lap he also crashed at the first obstacle – the slider. Because of the high risk he wanted to go in this second lap and because of the whole Lido waiting for his crazy tricks the Judges and organisers decided to let him do one more lap to show what he is able to do. Of course this lap was not counted for the scores, but the local people from Almere went totally crazy when he came in the last corner of the track, directly next to the crowed.
The wake-up call for the athletes was at 6 o’clock. Due to the quantity of riders the first run started at 7.30.First the youngest, in the categories Boys and Girls, had to hit the water. Right from the start, it was obvious how high the stakes would be to make it into the next round.Maxine Sapulette (NL), who achieved the rider of the year award 2006 just the night before, put on a monster-run with 71.50 points and showed everybody that she is a class of her own. So she qualified easily to the finals in the category junior-ladies.