PWA World Cup Portugal 2018 - Statements Freestyle Girls

Sarah-Quita Offringa wins the 2018 Viana PWA Freestyle World Cup in front of Maaike Huvermann and Oda Johanne Stokstad Brødholt. After two double eliminations in great conditions Sarah-Quita made the perfect start in her quest for an incredible 11th PWA Freestyle World Championship.

We caught up with the top girls for a few words about the event.

Sarah-Quita Offringa – 1st place

Portugal has delivered amazing conditions this week to compete in freestyle and slalom. To be honest I was not prepared for a super high wind event, I was ready to sail 5,1 and big board and be on my 7,8. Only when I arrived at Praia do Cabedelo did the locals say that you should add 10-15 knots to the forecast. Well that made a HUGE difference. In freestyle we sailed in a variety of conditions. I was on 4,2 most of the time and only sailed 4,5 the first day. We had flat water for the first single elimination and double elimination. And then for the second double two days later there were super fun waves rolling in. Oh man! It was so much fun competing in these conditions it almost felt like freesailing. In the past I’ve had to fight against my nerves, but at this event I felt the joy of competing in freestyling again. I feel like I was very consistent with most powermoves but I wasn’t able to go for combination moves. I hope this will come together for the next event! Other than that, I think the level was really high, and watching Maaike land a Skopu in the heat pushed me to go for one. And then Oda and Arrianne were doing Back loops in their heats so it was all just the right motivation for everyone to give their best.

It was an amazing week and one of the most exciting events I have done in a long, long time. It was a bit exhausting to switch between freestyle and slalom, and then for slalom I was in survival mode everytime holding on to my 5,6 while the men had the same size or smaller. I feel like I was pushed to the limits and then learned that I can handle more than I thought. It really has been a great experience competing here. Thanks to the locals for their warmth and a huge congrats to all the winners !

Maaike Huvermann – 2nd place

It’s a wrap on the first freestyle event of the season! A very windy week gave us the perfect conditions for some hardcore freestyle action. Two eliminations were completed, once finishing 2nd and the other one finishing 3rd. Oda and me had to do a sail off to determine who of us would get 2nd overall, as both finished 2nd once. I seem to need a lot of pressure sometimes to do well, and this time was not so different to that extent. I managed to win the sail off and therefor get a 2nd place for this event. Obviously I’m really stoked to finish 2nd. It feels like a little miracle to me that I still made it to 2nd place. My performance during the heats was not what I expected of myself, I was struggling a lot with the mental part of it all. Never really felt that before so it was something I somehow had to overcome. I started to figure it out as the competition went on and felt a lot better on the last day of competition. Oda pushed me to levels I’ve never found myself in and was sailing amazing in general. I feel like there’s not really a 2nd or 3rd in this event, she deserved it just as much as I did. I just got ‘lucky’ by doing well in the right moment.

I love sailing finals, so I’m bummed to only have sailed one. Especially because I tend to sail a lot better in the finals and enjoy it a lot. I guess it’s all part of competition sailing and you learn most from these kind of things. It doesn’t really surprise me because I wasn’t able to prepare very well for this event. I had barely sailed in the last 3 months, because it simply wasn’t windy. Anyway, this really motivated me to keep on training and hopefully do better in Fuerteventura in a month.

Oda Johanne – 3rd place

Looking back at the heats I am very happy with the heats scoring some good points. And sick to see the girls ripping so hard! It’s great to have a spot that offer the best sailing. Small ramps for a bit of jumping also. Happy to land Burners, Skopus, Back loops in the heats and make it to 3 out of 4 finals against Sarah. Looking back at the result I feel like the 2nd place went away in a gust… Losing the first double with 0,15 points by one mistake was hard, but that was reality. It’s what makes the competition so exciting! After the 2nd double when I got 2nd I was getting ready for slalom and released all the freestyle focus, just before getting told to do a sail off against Maaike in case we won’t have more wind as we both had one 2nd place each in the two double eliminations. For freestyle my results were: 1st single elimination: 2nd place, 1st double: 3rd place, 2nd single: 2nd place, 2nd double: 2nd place.

Fair enough, just not ideal straight after the final. It was not even in my mind that we would do a sail off while still having more wind that day and 3 more days to go. I did not win this one, and Maaike sailed better in that heat to take overall 2nd place.

I’m already thinking on the next event in Fuerte that will start in 4 weeks. It’s been amazing to be here in Portugal and the event really pushed my limits in both slalom and freestyle! Now I feel like anything is possible! Congrats to Sarah, Maaike and Arrianne for overall 1st and 2nd and 4th! I’m so happy that we have so many close heats and can show women windsurfers what is possible! We are all here to make it better for the future generation’s and I do think we do a good job!

Arrianne Aukes – 4th place

Viana do Castelo was such an amazing spot to sail with little ramps but flat water in-between. We had strong wind, little ramps to play with and I think we did put down a great performance as girls. We were doing forwards both ways, Shakas both ways, Konos, Skopus, Burners, Back loops in almost every heat. I can only be proud that we have grown so much in the past few years it’s great. . And the hotel is amazing. There is a special yoga room ;-), sauna and they offer perfect sport massages. It was great to watch slalom too, especially the girls holding on to 6.4 sails while the big guys were on smaller gear. Very impressive!

Johanna Rümenapp – 5th place

It was an amazing event here in Portugal and for me a great experience competing for the first time at a Worldcup! Viana do Castelo offered top freestyle conditions right from day one on. We had so much wind! I like beeing a little bit overpowered and was able to show some moves on the inside while I was struggling a little bit with the chop on the way out. I was absolutely motivated by freestyling together with the best girls of the world and it made me also trying some new moves. In the end I am super happy about my 5th place! It was a great atmosphere on the water as well as on the beach and I‘m looking forward to join more PWA events in future!