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Round 1 Freestyle Essex
Essex “Summer Sessions”
Location Sponsors – Essex Kite Park
Dates – May 15th-17th
Location – Essex Kite Park http://www.essexkitepark.co.uk/
Disciplines – Freestyle Kitelandboard and Kitebuggy
The forecast for the weekend was a bit up and down with a hint of rain however quite a few riders had made the long drive – Switzerland , France and Germany !
Essex Kitepark is just outside of Southend a 15 min drive – in the middle of the countryside and can accommodate any wind direction.
Competitors started to arrive on Thursday night and had a great Free ride on the Friday.
Saturday
Registration was early next morning. Riders briefing was held in the Clubhouse and the first start was 11 am. Unforutunalty it rained very lightly which delayed the start for half an hour. The grass soon dried out and everyone was ready to go in the 20 -25 knot winds
Judging was two times British Champ Jack Elston and Ash Garwood together with Freestyle guru Richard Flindall.
Up first was the first round of buggies – these boys know how to put on a show and we had quite a few mishaps , broken axles, inverted buggies ( with pilot) near misses with Sliders to name but a few – a great effort made by Carl Kirlton – swapping from his landboard to buggy for the first time this season.
They had 8 heats in total – in the losers final it was Frenchman Guillame Girrard who has some great transitions to beat Graham Read
In the final was Adam Toms who was against Phil Revill – Tom was going huge – a bit to huge when he landed from a 1080 off a ramp to then lose his wheel on landing – who would lend him a buggy to finish the heat against Phil – not many came forward ! Phil meanwhile was racking up the points – with 3 mins left Tom got back into a borrowed buggy to still claim the win with his huge boosting and technical tricks.
Next up was the Junior Kitelandboard comp – This was run in a round robin format where they all competed against one another, French German and UK riders – the riding was a very high standard – with local rider Bradley Noble showing great skills, French rider Max Lux came 2nd with some powerful riding and the German Pascal Smidt put on a great show to take 1st with great variation.
The Amateur Men took on to the arena – it was quite confusing for the judges at times as most were riding flysurfers – serious airtime . In the final were Marius Siebert, Sascha Brandt and Will Rose. Marius and Sascha went big however crashed a fair bit.
Will put on a great show and was far more consistent with his landings to take the win with Sasha in 2nd and Marius in 3rd
Next up was the Pro Men which proved to have a very high standard with lots of spins, board offs, rallies and a few handle passes mixed in.
It was great to see Greg Chilton back after a year out after recovering from a bike crash!
Local Essex boy Ash Garwood gave it his best show to come in 2nd ahead of Frenchman Laurent Guyot in 3rd and Germanys Emmanuel Norman who had some lofty jumps and sweet landings to take the win!
Big thanks to all that came, filmed and special thanks to Jay and Steve from Essex Kitepark for hosting the event
Prize giving was at 7 pm and then the bands came on!
See you next year
Results
Buggy
1st Adam Toms
2nd Phil Revill
3rd Guillaume Girrard
Junior Landboard
1st Pascal Smidt
2nd Max Lux
3rd Bradley Noble
Am Landboard
1st Will Rose
2nd Sascha Brandt
3rd Marius Siebert
Pro Landboard
1st Emmanuel Norman
2nd Ash Garwood
3rd Laurent Guyot
