Day 2 at the Gran Canaria Wind & Waves Festival 2014 started quite relaxed. The wind was light, but picked up during the middday and race director Duncan Coombs started the trials at 13.30.

Wind and waves were there. Not the usual extreme strong summer wind, but a decent strength, which allowed the competitors to show jumps and wave rides. 3 heats out of 4 saw a valid result and 6 riders out of 8 already made it into the main event. Heat 4 had to be cancelled as the wind dropped completely.

Qualified for the main event are Jaeger Stone, Moritz Mauch, Alessio Stillrich, Eric Sanllehy, Jonas Ceballos, Albert Pijoan. Still one heat to sail.

 

Jaeger Stone tweaked

Jaeger Stone tweaked

 

Trial Heat 1 – Moritz Mauch, Jaeger Stone, Josep Pons

For us it was quite clear. Jaeger Stone, who returned to the tour needed to sail a solid heat and he did. He landed a big Forward, a tweaked Pushloop and a clean Backloop. Plus he had a few longer wave rides with nicely carved turns. Despite being ill and not being fit at the moment, Moritz Mauch landed a Forward and a Backloop and had a few newschool tricks in his wave rides. Josep Pons tried a lot, but often lost the wave after a good start of the ride. He landed a table top Forward twice, had an ok Taka combined on a wave, but missed to qualify. 

 

Statement from Jaeger Stone about his heat in the trials:

 

Heat 2 – Alessio Stillrich, Eric Sanllehy, Nicolas Agkazciyan and Markus Rydberg

Alessio Stillrich, one of the best locals at Pozo, seemed to feel some pressure and crashed a few landings of his jumps in the beginning. He then changed the sail and landed a big Backloop or a Backside 360 on a bigger wave section. He qualified for the main event like Eric Sanllehy did, too. Eric had solid waverides with a few technical tricks and landed solid jumps, too, like a Forward or a clean Backloop. On the way in he went for a Shaka. Nicolas had a good heat with two solid jumps, a Pushloop and a Backloop, but missed a few points in the waverides.

 

Alessio Stillrich

Alessio Stillrich

 

 

Heat 3 – Jonas Ceballos, Albert Pijoan, Pablo Ramirez and Robert Baldyga

Jonas Ceballos was the man of heat 3. He landed a perfect Tweaked Pushloop and a completely onehanded Backloop (> watch the video) plus had the best wave ride of the whole qualification. He qualified with a perfect heat for the main event. Jonas works in Las Palmas, but got a few hours off from work to do his “job” at Pozo. Well done Jonas! Albert Pijoan, who lives at Pozo and trained hard during the winter months in Vietnam, scored big points, especially on his jumps. He landed a tweaked Pushloop and a Forward and had solid wave rides. Albert definitely improved during the winter months. Young talented local Pablo Ramirez showed good style, but crashed a lot of his airmoves. He was dissappointed. We heard him shouting during his heat. He obviously felt the pressure and did not qualify in the end. It was definitely a very hard heat.

Jonas Ceballos

Jonas Ceballos

 

Heat 4 – Camille Juban, Graham Ezzy, Justin Denel, Arthur Arutkin

During heat 4 the wind dropped completely. Camille had a solid heat with good jumps and a few wave rides. Justin and Arthur were quite similar in their performance collecting points with good jumps and a bit of wave riding. Graham had solid jumps, but were searching for waves during the heat. So all participants of heat 4 have to battle it out again, when the wind and waves will return.

 

Overall it was great windsurfing and we are working on a little edit, to show you some scenes from the trials. 

 

What else?

Not too good news we have from Jules Denel. He twisted his ankle during a landing of a one footed Backloop. We really hope Jules will recover quick and he will be able to compete, when the competition will be on.

 

 

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