| TOP GUN | |
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Brazil would be one of the more exotic stops for any world tour, with its sunny climate, clean beaches and beautiful girls, so it comes as no surprise that it is a favourite stop of the IFWA freeride tour. The third and final round of 2009, incorporating the 11th Brazilian Jet Waves Cup, has come to the town of Piçarras, Santa Catarina, who warmly welcomed the event for the first time. This contest was going to be interesting as the surf forecast was not big, and the waves break close to the beach risking some shallow landings, but offering a superb spectacle for the crowd who would be barely 30 metres away from the action. The Brazilian round always attracts a good international entry, and with 10 Brazilian riders, five Argentinians, Graham Reid from the UK, along with five other Europeans, three Americans and one South African, this year was to be no exception. Many riders went out to Florianopolis a few days before to sort out skis and get some practice in. As riders trickled in, you would bump into them in a café or bar, which is one of the best parts of these tours, meeting up with friends again, face to face instead of on Facebook! The trickier part of Brazil is the ski aspect, or lack of them! Prohibitive shipping costs and corrupt customs make shipping a ski out unfeasible, so each rider has a different approach with some renting local skis and others finding or borrowing hulls and taking out disassembled engines and poles in suitcases. There is a small pool of hulls used each year by different people, and each year another layer of fibreglass is added to repair the damage. Freeriders can be very tough on their boats! Friday morning saw registration on the beach, which was great because it was the first time that everyone was together en masse. The weather was hot and sunny with 1.2m waves, but the forecast was cloudy for the weekend. After a bit of free practice, there was a riders meeting, and then pre-qualifying, or ‘let battle commence’. The pre-qualifiers do not include the top eight seeded riders, of which Graham is one of, and is normally a straightforward round to decide the running order for qualifying. But by this time we had 23 riders and only 20 spaces in the standard bracket so some riders were going to take an early bath! To eliminate the three riders, the lowest six in the pre-qualifiers had a ride-off, with one six-minute session and the top three scores would go through. We have to spare a thought for our South African friend Brett Armstrong who was fifth last year but failed to even qualify this time on his borrowed heavy stock SXR in these small waves.
Last chance qualifiers were run just after lunch and 1/8th finals after that, so by the end of Saturday there were just eight riders left. So how did Graham do? It didn’t start well, with his steering cable coming away from the nozzle several times, requiring frequent visits back to the beach. That put him into the LCQ’s where he came up against Polish rider and friend Arcadius Schramek. The smaller conditions, more akin to the UK, gave Graham an advantage in being able to back flip cleanly off small waves which put him through to the 1/8th finals. There he came up against another friend, American Eddie Bettencourt. This was always going to be a close contest but despite Graham’s flips and rolls with variations, Eddie got the win due to his awesome Californian surf riding, ending Graham’s weekend and placing him ninth equal. There were also problems for Lenzi who couldn’t get his ski running right on Saturday and could only surf ride. He didn’t make it through the qualifiers and needed a wild card to get into the last eight. But the ski he had on Sunday was a flat-water freestyle ski and he was a different kettle of fish!
Needless to say, it was a later start on Sunday as the last eight riders prepared themselves and went mentally through their bag of tricks. The top guys never “show their hand” in the early rounds, so everyone was looking forward to bigger and better things, although the weather wasn’t helping with measly one metre waves, intermittent at times, and the wind picking up. The first quarter final saw Pierre Maixent beat Italian Fédérico Bufacchi, and then Romain Stampers disposed of Brazilian Alexandre Buneder. There then followed a close duel between two close friends - the US pair of Eddie Bettencourt and Mike Serlin. The outcome was that the judges gave it to Mike – we couldn’t call it on the beach. The last quarter final would have been worthy of the final itself with Ross Champion facing Lenzi, current world freeride champ against current world freestyle champ! Although, the small waves played to the Brazilian’s more powerful ski, giving Lenzi an advantage and the win. The semi-finals followed on later, allowing time for the riders to rest, and the waves to become even less frequent. The first was an epic battle between French riders Stampers and Maixent, but by now Pierre was on fire, powering big one-footed and one-hand-one-footed flips off the small waves to secure the win. Likewise, Lenzi’s 1000cc was too much of a match for Serlin’s 701cc putting the local rider through to the final. The 10 minute final was a much closer affair. Maixent was slashing every wave in sight with a 360-degree flat spin re-entry, insane flips in his inimitable style and pulled out a no-legged superman flip at the end. Lenzi though was getting some big air with some good variations on his rolls and flips, and his surfing, which had improved over last year, included several barrel roll re-entries. We couldn’t call the winner of that round on the beach either!
So the end of another round and another year and, as everyone said their goodbyes and disappeared back to their different corners of the globe, we reflected on the fact that the bar has again been raised, both on the water and the whole event off the water. We have had small waves here, giant waves in Oregon and perfect mid-sized waves in France. Each beach with a different type and speed of break - perfect arenas to test the best riders in the world.
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| Last Updated ( Friday, 13 November 2009 15:33 ) |
In 1998, the International Freeride Watercraft Association established an elite contest for the top percentage of its pilots. Its purpose was to encourage the lost art of aerial combat and to insure that the handful of men who graduated were the best jet pilots in the world. They succeeded. Today, the IFWA calls it Jet Waves. The riders call it TOP GUN.
As everyone drifted back to the hotel, the first round of the Brazilian après-ski began! The organisers had arranged a weekend deal with a local bar complex, the Balhi-Hi, who had laid on a party with free drinks and free nibbles for all, so after a few brief opening words from IFWA President Tchello Brandão, we felt it only right to sample the local fare. Well, it would have been rude not to wouldn’t it, and we were doing it for Britain!
Saturday was the big day with the bulk of the comps being run. The town council had erected two grandstands on the beach and the crowd was gathering early, ready to make a day of it. The first round was qualifying itself. The comp from then on was a head-to-head knock-out format, with both riders on the water at the same time for six-minute heats, with their best four aerial tricks and best four surfing manoeuvres being scored by five international judges. The winners of these heats would go through to the 1/8th final and the losers into the last chance qualifiers, where they ski again, with these winners also going through to the 1/8ths. The action is constant, and at the end of each heat, a flag is waved in the colour of the vest of the winning rider so everyone can see who won. It’s a good format - simple, proven, and it works. The crowds were good and very involved in close action, enjoying big flips and rolls in the smallish surf, cheering for their Brazilian riders, and especially for local hero Lenzi, who actually lives in Piçarras. The shallow water took its fair share of victims, or nose cones, with one memorable flip from Tiago Geitens landing vertically in the sand – ouch!
Saturday evening saw round two of the après-ski, and we take it up a gear. The evening started in the town centre on the river with a night time jetski display from all the riders led by Lenzi, fresh from his World Finals win in Havasu, in front of several thousand spectators and supported with a barrage of fireworks and music. The organisation and help from the Town Council was great to see with roads closed and grand stands erected on both sides of the river. Then it’s on again to the Balhi-Hi for the night and another party for everyone which went long into the night. Also featured was a beauty pageant judged by some of the riders. It’s tough at the top! The winning girls were on the podium on the beach the following day during prize giving.
In the end, the win was given to Alessander Lenzi, on his home turf, for a deserved win. Maixent then second, and after the ride off, Mike Serlin took third on the day. As this was the last round, the accumulated series points gave Ross Champion the overall World Championship for the second year running, with Fédérico Bufacchi second, Maixent third, Serlin fourth, and Graham Reid fifth overall.