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It’s been a tough work to do after the event, but it’s worth it. Here is the link to access the complete doc (french version) that gathers (almost) the whole MEDIA COVERAGE of the EFE/EFPT in Six Fours. Hey riders, it’s a good complement to show up to your sponsors ! Do you appreciate it ? Click on the pic to access the document.
Ca a été un sacré boulot à faire après l’EFE, mais ça valait le coup. Voici le lien pour accéder au doc complet (version française) qui rassemble (presque) tous les retours média de l’EFE/EFPT à Six Fours. Hey les riders, c’est un bon complément à montrer à vos sponsors ! Vous appréciez ? Cliquez sur la photo pour accéder au doc.
Here are the full results of the event after first double elimination.
Day 5 of the EFE/EFPT tour stop here in the South of France should have seen the 36 competitors on the water one more time as the forecast looked very promising for the morning. The new single elimination ladder had already been prepared and announced and one more day with great windsurf action could have been expected.
There was just one thing that couldn’t have been calculated, crossing the plan: the red flags were put up along the whole coastline between Marseille and Nice with the strict announcement, that everybody who will enter either the beach or the water will be warned by the police. The council recommended to cancel the competition and gave us no authorization to send the riders out again.
After no further eliminations were possible, the result for the second EFPT stop is as follows:
1st Dieter Van der Eyken (Starboard) from Belgium
2nd Tonky Frans from Bonaire
3rd Davy Scheffers from Holland
Results tow-in:
1st Antoine Albert (New Caledonia)
2nd Julien Mas (France)
3rd Romain Pinocheau (France)
The prize giving happened at 5.00 pm this afternoon and saw a big involvement of local politicians and press. Apart from the winners of the two competitions, Julien Mas was rewarded with a trophy in memory of Vincent Mellouet, who tragically passed away earlier this year. The organization wanted to honor a person who does a lot for windsurfing, which in that case has been Julien who himself is the organizer of the Wind Meet.
The team from the EFPT would like to congratulate the top three for their great performance and of course all the other riders, especially the ones who competed for the first time in an international event! You all did an amazing job and we hope to welcome you on further tour stops in the future!
Report and pics from Hanna Poschinger, EFPT cool press officer 
The closing ceremony and prize giving will be broadcasted live from 5pm on www.efe-sixfours.com !
Retransmission en direct de la cérémonie de clôture à partir de 17h sur www.efe-sixfours.com/live !
Just as forecasted the southern shores of France didn’t see much wind throughout the day. Accompanied by a lot of sunshine though, the tow in final was scheduled for 2.00 pm this afternoon. After an hour of training, where the two towing boats could have been seized not only by the finalists but also by all the other riders who wanted to give it another go and have some nice time on the water, Tom Hartmann gave the permission to start the final.
Every rider had two runs and chose to get towed in from the right or the left side of the beach. A very well organised and experienced team on the boats managed to provide a perfect process of competition.
Really impressing and quite surprising was the solid performance of young French sailor Romain Pinocheau. Romain was one of the riders that we presented in our fresh faces category earlier this year. Pinocheau started freestyling only two years ago and circled two perfectly popped and dry landed double funnels into the glassy waters of Le Brusc. This maneuver secured him the third place today!
Julien Mas showed two high scoring moves but it was not enough to convince the judges for the first place. Therefor he ended up second, clearly disappointed but with a high motivation to strike back as soon as possible he was seen asking around for lifts to the UK event – CENTAUR King of the Wind.
Furthermore, we saw sick action by Antoine Albert from New Caledonia. Albert was the only one who didn’t show funnels or burner combinations, but switch kono attempts! After he landed the first one perfectly, he went for a skopu in the second run and almost nailed it! This was rewarded by the crowd and the judges and brought him a well deserved first place! The young rider jumped from his board in celebration and later was found smiling from ear to ear on the podium and stated how happy he was to win in an international competition for the first time!
Even though the podium has been fully under a French commando, there have been some great performances by Italian North/Fanatic rider Mattia Fabrizi who showed burner/funnel variations and ended up 4th. 5th place was taken by freestyle talent from Austria, Max Matissek (Fanatic) with a double funnell cana brava, a very clean, technical and well executed move.
The spectators on the beach saw once again a nice show and the prize giving happened straight afterwards in the tent. Trophies were handed out and the amount of photographers gave a hollywood style.
The organisation announced a social evening tonight with a pasta party that will be free for all competitors. Afterwards it will probably be a short evening and therefor longer night for the competitors, as the skippers meeting for tomorrow is scheduled for 9.00 am and the program is: COMPETITION! The wind forecast predicts offshore wind with a strength of up to 67 knots in the gusts! Make sure not to miss a piece of action and follow us on the live stream!
EFPT report from Hanna Poschinger
Photos by Raffi Cherbedjian
Hey guys! While everybody was partying yesterday night @ La Vague, our video crew Pertusatofilms.com was working on the next podcast. There it is for you now online! Enjoy…
After two very stormy days the beach of le Brusc, in Six Fours les Plages showed it’s other face today. All the competitors and the crew were welcomed with calm weather and plenty of sunshine, making the whole place chilled out in comparison to the hardcore competition days before.
The skippers meeting was held, like scheduled, at 9.00 am in the morning but it became clear quite fast that there won’t be any windsurf action happening today. Therefor race director Tom Hartmann wanted to seize the free time to hold an EFPT meeting with all the riders where the future of the European Freestyle Pro Tour was discussed. Topics on the list were the next season, new events, prize money splits as well as judging rules. Nearly all participants showed up and we had a very good discussion where everybody gave some input and constructive ideas for the next seasons.
At 1.00 pm the practice runs for the tow in were announced. All the riders were asked to join in and many even tried it out for the first time. We saw 21 riders participating in the following qualification event for the big tow-in competition tomorrow. As the beach was filling up with spectators, the rider’s choice of clothing ranged from boardshorts to winter wetsuits and still brought back summer for a while. Outstanding performances were shown by French sailor Adrien Bosson (North/Fanatic) and the other French rider, Julian Mas, who have been training this kind of format a lot lately. Every move was honored by a lot of noise coming from the crowds on the beach. Another French sailor impressed a lot with perfectly landed double funnels – Romain Pinocheau.
Less surprising was the show of Austrian tow-in weapon Max Matissek (Fanatic) who showed a super stylish triple funnel, properly taking off three times. Just the last rotation managed to pull the Podersdorf local off his Fanatic Skate but his maneuver was still accompanied by loud cheering and applause.
The Sailloft team Adam Sims and Adrian Beholz (Fanatic) didn't have too much luck, showing their skills in all the practice runs but couldn't quite get them in the qualification.
Winner of the double elimination Dieter Van der Eyken (Starboard) landed both of his possible moves very clean and literally seemed to be glued to his board.
The moves that were shown consisted mainly of double funnels, burners, culos and even some switch konos. From videos that were released earlier this year by the French team; Bosson, Akgazciyan, Ruenes and Mas we know that there is much more possible and suggest that today everybody tried to be on the safe side. Nevertheless we are expecting some sick action tomorrow where riders will fight for the top positions. Skippers meeting is scheduled for 10.00 am tomorrow morning with the probability of running the tow in around 11.00 am.
You can follow the event and everything that is happening here on the LIVE STREAM at:
http://efe-sixfours.com/videos/live/
For everybody who thought that yesterday was one of the windiest days in the history of freestyle windsurfing competition, South of France had a little surprise ready. The Mistral was absolutely howling this morning, throwing the mist of the sea many meters into the shore. After we were unable to get any authorization from the council to start the contest at 9.00 am as planned, the riders of the postponed first heat of the day entered the water at 12.30 with sail sizes 3.6 and 4.0.
For everybody who thought that yesterday was one of the windiest days in the history of freestyle windsurfing competition, South of France had a little surprise ready. The Mistral was absolutely howling this morning, throwing the mist of the sea many meters into the shore. After we were unable to get any authorization from the council to start the contest at 9.00 am as planned, the riders of the postponed first heat of the day entered the water at 12.30 with sail sizes 3.6 and 4.0.
In once again very strong and wavy onshore conditions we have to mention some outstanding sailors apart from the top three of the double elimination.
Two young riders who went for their first EFPT competitions this year were Francesco Cappuzzo (RRD/RRD) from Italy and Romain Pinocheau from France, who started to train freestyle in 2010! After only two years of training the promising talent shows all the latest tricks in the contest ranging from Konos to Shakas and even Skopus. Just as Cappuzzo who was sailing three heats of the double and could then only be taken out by Matthias Genkel (Sailloft) from Germany who is definitely one of the riders with the highest diversity on this event.
Team North/Fanatic France including Bastien Rama and Adrien Bosson left the judges impressed. Local freestyler Adrien Bosson was sailing very strong and consistent through all of his heats, proving that his homespot is right here, in le Brusc. Once again in competition he had to give way to his country mate Antony Ruenes in a heat that turned out to be extremely close.
Furthermore, Israeli Adam Gavriel proved his calibre in an international competition and dispatched of Greek rider Athanasiou and a very consistent and EFPT top 5 ranked Russian freestyler, Vladimir Yakovlev (JP/Neilpryde). One more time it was French top rider Ruenes who stopped the flow of Gavriel, Ruenes still seemed to be very happy about his good result here.
Performing on a top level has also been Rick Jendrusch from the Netherlands who sailed four heats to then be stopped by Dutch sailor Davy Scheffers. Scheffers on the other hand did really well through all of his heats and seemed to be in top form today busting out Skopus, Shakas and Burner 900s with an amazing air time managing to sail from a joined 5th place up again to the podium.
The results of todays double elimination are:
1st Dieter Van der Eyken (Starboard)
2nd Tonky Frans
3rd Davy Scheffers
Dieter Van der Eyken about the European Tour and his motivation: ‘What I first thought when I saw that Tonky will enter the competition, was that it will be a battle for the second place (…) I definitely wanted to compete for the European title, so when I heard that Tonky was entering I saw my dream already fading away, but now I could win, so I am super stoked!’ He also pointed out that it has been a long time since he was sailing in such strong conditions. Dieter used his 3.6 the whole day and still ended up being overpowered.
We are having a very motivated fleet of riders here and our race director is already preparing the next single elimination as it looks still windy for tomorrow.
Make sure to follow us on the LIVE STREAM on: http://efe-sixfours.com/videos/live/
Watch here the video podcast of day 1, filmed and edited by Pertusato Films:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xunwlx_european-funboard-expression-2012-podcast-1_sport
Hanna Poschinger/EFPT press officer, from Six Fours
All Photos by Raffi Cherbedjian
Here is the 1st trailer of DAY 1 action… Enjoy. Podcast #2 will come soon…