wiNZurf - news page 4

December 02, 1997
THE 1997 PWA INDOOR WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP FINAL, THE MADRID PWA FUNDOLE
BAKER AND LELIEVRE ARE CROWNED 1997 PWA INDOOR WORLD CHAMPIONS

THE MADRID PWA FUNDOLE 1997
THE 1997 PWA INDOOR WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP FINAL
28 - 29th November 1997

The Madrid PWA Fundole 1997 is the fourth and final event in the Indoor
Windsurfing World Championship. The tour began back in March in Lyon, France;
the birthplace of indoor windsurfing. The tour then moved on through Europe to
Milan and Berlin before reaching it's conclusion here in Madrid.

The PWA Fundole Eurotour is a truly incredible travelling roadshow based
around a huge 80 metre pool which holds 2.5 million litres of water and takes
over 40 hours to fill. The wind is provided by 30 turbine fans which burn
enough energy to power a small shopping mall and a lighting and sound system
are brought in to transform the 7,000 seater Madrid Veladrome into a laser lit
spectacle that allows 'rock & roll' to meet windsurfing in what is surely one
of the world's most unique sporting events.

This is the first time that the PWA Fundole has visited Madrid and Windsurfing
in Spain has always had strong support, with many of the world's top sailors
coming from Spain not least the incredible talent of 10x World Champion E-11
Bjorn Dunkerbeck.

The players...
With Indoor World Championship title at stake, all of the leading contenders
were here in Madrid for a last shot at winning the title. Coming in to the
event, the formidable US-1111 Robby Naish held a narrow lead over K-66
England's Nik Baker. However, the French are a very strong force in indoor
windsurfing with F-35 Robert Teriitehau a force to be reckoned with in slalom
and F-808 Eric Thieme a master of the indoor jump ramp. Spanish hopes were
resting with E-9 Eduardo Bellini, several times a podium fin In the women's
competition, the battle for the Indoor World Championship was between F-12
Nathalie LeLievre and Z-14, Switzerland's Karin Jaggi. Karin has been
whittling away at Nathalie's lead event by event and this her last opportunity
to wrestle the title from the Frenchwoman who has dominated women's indoor
windsurfing for several years.

Friday 28th November
The first shock of tonight's show occurred before the show had even started.
US-1111 Robby Naish failed to take a seeding position in the top 4, a feat he
has achieved at every indoor this year. Robby is forced to start from the
second slot on the start ramp with Baker, Teriitehau, Fenton and Bouldoires
occupying the top4 positions.

Failing to qualify in the top 4 guarantees a tough heat and Robby got just
that, drawn against F-35 Robert Teriitehau, Spanish champion E-8 Ivan Aguado
and rising Italian star I-157 Raymondo Gasperini. However, Teriitehau and
Naish made no mistakes, moving into 1st and 2nd position off the ramp and
holding position to move into the semi finals..

Scott Fenton had a nervous moment in heat 2. The Kiwi sailor led from the gun
and pulled out a commanding lead from I-286 Andrea Rosati and Frenchman F-808
Eric Thieme who appeared to have lost his normally consistent form. However,
Fenton nearly blew his first heat when he fell on two successive gybes
allowing Rosati to catch and pass him, leaving Fenton almost fortunate to
finish second.

Heat 3 saw yet another top seed fall as Z-62 Jerome Bouldoires charged off the
map into the first mark and totally stacked his first gybe. Fortunately,
Bouldoires didn't completely block the pool and Spaniards E-9 Eduardo Bellini
and E-66 Stephane Etienne slipped through into 1st and 2nd, much to the
delight of the 8000 strong crowd. Bellini and Etienne both went on to qualify
for the next round.

Heat 4 was entertaining also, no.1 seed, K-66 Nik Baker made no mistake as he
flew off the ramp and into the first gybe, taking the wholeshot, and emerging
with a clear lead. Behind Baker, Dunkerbeck had been second into the gybe but
dropped in at the rig-flip allowing Italian Cesare Cantagalli through into
second position. Dunkerbeck fought back and 1 lap later was able to gybe
tightly inside Cantagalli and re-take 2nd position. The crowd went wild as the
10 x World Champion moved back to a qualifying po The second round saw a truly
spectacular crash involving US-1111 Naish and KZ-1 Scott Fenton. A very tough
heat saw Teriitehau come off the ramp ahead of Rosati with Fenton below Naish
in the upwind position. Naish defended his upwind position hard, almost
bearing down on Fenton who was fighting to move upwind setting himself up for
the first gybe. 40 metres down the pool the two sailors were pushing so hard
that Naish's feet dislodged from the straps and Robby was catapulted over
Fenton. Picking both sail I complete contrast to the first semi, Baker and
Bellini sailed an error free heat to take their positions in the final. As is
the tradition now, the four finalist undergo second timing test during the
show to calculate the starting ramp positions. Nik Baker, the only man to
complete two laps of the pool in under 36 seconds in qualification did just
that once more as he qualified in pole position with a time of 35.76 seconds
ahead of Teriitehau 36.08, Bellini 38.01 and Rosati 39.49.

Baker had a shocking start to the final as he came off the ramp behind
Teriitehau who was upwind of him. This put Baker in a tricky position having
right of way to gybe second but very little room to do so. Baker tripped up on
his first gybe allowing Bellini through to chase Teriitehau. Obviously
disturbed by the poor start and first gybe Baker made several uncharacteristic
errors on the following three laps which prevented him from catching Bellini
and the runaway Teriitehau.

Super-finals
Teriitehau took the first man-on-man super final win as the Frenchman cruised
into the lead on the first leg, made a killer first gybe and immediately
removed the pressure from himself. Bellini closed-up on the final leg as
Teriitehau lost speed on his penultimate gybe but Teriitehau never really
looked treatened as he went 1-0 up.

In the second super final, it was Bellini's turn to take pole position on the
ramp and his turn also to mirror Teriitehau with a perfect first gybe allowing
him to pull out an instant lead over Teriitehau. However Teriitehau quickly
caught up and pulled off the most incredible 'slam gybe' at the ramp end of
the pool to set himself up for the next leg both inside and upwind of a
stunned Bellini who was yet to make a mistake ! It was Teriitehau's brilliance
that prevailed, from the upwind position, he was a In the women's racing it
was a similar story of attack and counter attack as the four finalists
LeLievre, Jaggi, Rondelez and Boronat left the ramp. LeLievre, lost her pole
positoin advantage almost immediately as Sigrid Rondelez 'smoked' her
opposition to the first gybe from 3rd position on the ramp! Rondelez however
had trouble controlling her speed into the gybe and exited too far downwind
allowing LeLievre to overtake. However, there was more drama again on the
following gybe as Rondelez left a space o LeLivere looked dominant as she
charged into the lead in the women's super final 'duel' taking a comfortable
first gybe with Rondelez chasing in second position. Rondelez sailed well but
was unable to close the gap on LeLievre who has sailed beyond reproach this
year and looked set to dominate 1997 by winning not only outdoor Race, Wave
and Overall but almost certainly Indoor Race, Jump and Overall also, a truly
remarkable feat.

Slalom results - Friday 28th November
Men
1st F-35 Robert Teriitehau
2nd E-9 Eduardo Bellini
3rd K-66 Nik Baker

Women
1st F-12 Nathalie LeLievre
2nd B-90 Sigrid Rondelez
3rd Z-14 Karin Jaggi

Friday night jump
Much to the delight of the Spanish crowd, Outdoor World Champion Bjorn
Dunkerbeck chose to jump in his home country indoor contest. Dunkerbeck, who
normally leaves the risky jump contest to the likes of Bellini, Naish, Baker
and Thieme pulled off a nice forward in qualification, placing him in 9th of
the 17 sailors trying-out with the top 10 sailors competing in the show.

However, Dunkerbeck's first jump was not up to the standard of his qualifying
jumps and he saluted the crowd and bowed out of the first night of the Madrid
indoor. With a very high standard of jumping here in Madrid it was Naish,
Baker, Fenton, Bellini and Bouldoires who were able to qualify for the jump
final. Eric Thieme's nightmare first night continued as the Frenchman who
qualified for the show in the last 10th position narrowly missed out on a
place in the jump final for the first time this year !

Robby Naish moved quickly into the lead in the three jump final after his
first jump, a huge fully tweaked table top that he landed perfectly and made
him a clear leader after the first jump. However, Robby's first jump lead was
lost to local hero E-9 Eduardo Bellini (The table-top back loop hero of Milan)
as he followed up a near perfect back loop with a high, dry, forward loop,
moving him into 1st position ahead of K-66 Nik Baker whose huge table top also
moved him ahead of Naish and into second position All five of the finalists
really went for their final jump, with back loop attempts being the name of
the game. With two jumps out of three counting, neither Baker or Naish were
able to out-score Bellini and the final 1,2,3 remained Bellini, Baker, Naish.

In the women's jump it was Karin Jaggi's night, the Swiss sailor out-jumped
her main rival Nathalie LeLievre all day, qualifying for the show in 1st
position, qualifying for the final in 1st position and then pulling off a
forward and a sweet table-top to leave her 3.5 points clear of LeLievre who
finished second ahead of Spaniard Nicole Boronat.

Jump results - Friday 28th November

Men
1st E-9 Eduardo Bellini
2nd K-66 Nik Baker
3rd US-1111 Robby Naish

Women
1st Z-14 Karin Jaggi
2nd F-12 Nathalie LeLievre
3rd E-77 Nicole Boronat

Saturday 29th November

The semi-final line up for night two was E-9 Eduardo Bellini, K-66 Nik Baker,
I-99 Cesare Cantagalli and US-1111 Robby Naish. Bellini got off to a great
start ahead of Baker and Naish. Eduardo maintained his lead ahead of Baker,
leaving Naish to try and catch his World championship rival. Baker sailed
flawlessly however and made no mistakes to finish a comfortable second ahead
of Naish who's event, but more importantly, Indoor World Title hopes were
slipping away.

In the second semi it was Teriitehau and Rosati who progressed through to the
four man final. These four sailors then completed the individual timing tests
to qualify for their start-ramp positions. First to go was I-286 Andrea Rosati
with a time of 38.36 seconds, this was followed by Baker who proceeded to set
a pool-record of 34.32 seconds giving him the pole position ahead of F-35
Robert Teriitehau who broke the old 35 second indoor pool record, set by Baker
the previous night, but could not match the n Baker made no mistakes in the
four-man final, cruising to victory and taking pole position in the first
super-final against Robert Teriitehau.

Baker had a good start in the first super-final and led into the first gybe.
Baker's first gybe was not as clean as it might have been but he managed to
defend his lead from Teriitehau into the second gybe. Baker made no mistakes
on his second gybe and exited fully planing to pull away to a comfortable
lead. 1 - 0 Baker.

Following his flawless first super-final duel Baker had a nightmare second
final, stalling several gybes and allowing Teriitehau to cruise to an easy
victory 1- 1 all level, everything to play for!

The 3rd and final super-final saw Baker back in pole position on the ramp.
Baker and Teriitehau limbered up and tried to look relaxed for a race which
for Baker could win him the Overall indoor World Championship and for
Teriitehau could win the Madrid Event. Baker flew out of the blocks and into a
very narrow lead, just a nose ahead of Teriitehau. Baker absolutely threw his
board into the all-important first gybe and exited the first gybe both with
speed and very close to the mark. Teriitehau who would no In the women's
slalom Nathalie LeLievre dominated once more taking victory from a slightly
dazed Sigrid Rondelez who had sustained a gashed forehead when she was hit by
a boom-end in an earlier round.

Slalom results - Saturday 29th November

Men
1st K-66 Nik Baker
2nd F-35 Robert Teriitehau
3rd E-9 Eduardo Bellini

Women
1st F-12 Nathalie LeLievre
2nd B-90 Sigrid Rondelez
3rd Z-14 Karin Jaggi

Jumping

The women's jump final result was similar to Friday night, F-12 Nathalie
LeLievre qualified for the jump final in 1st position ahead of Z-14 Karin
Jaggi. However, in the final itself Jaggi was victorious for a second night
running performing a table-top and a forward loop to out-score LeLievre who
struggled to find her form from previous jump contests.

There was drama in the men's jump contest when it looked certain that after a
poor first jump that Nik Baker might not qualify for the final. Baker, who was
second from last to jump, had to watch while Stephane Etienne, Jerome
Bouldoires, Eric Thieme and Cesare Cantagalli all made a safe second jump and
looked sure to qualify. Baker realised that he would have to do something
pretty special to qualify for the jump final. He hit the ramp and threw his
board into a big one-handed forward with a controlled laaving Naish in 8th
position and out of the competition and unable to win the Indoor World
Championship.

Thieme went on to take the jump final by storm as he pulled of a high, dry
forward, followed by a higher, drier table-top finishing ahead of E-66
Stephane Etienne and Cesare Cantagalli with his first podium finish in 3rd
position. Baker finished the jump final in 4th position which was enough to
give him the jump victory for the contest.

Jump results - Saturday 29th November

Men
1st F-808 Eric Thieme
2nd E-66 Stephane Etienne
3rd I-99 Cesare Cantagalli

Women
1st Z-14 Karin Jaggi
2nd F-12 Nathalie LeLievre
3rd E-77 Nicole Boronat

The 1997 PWA Fundole Madrid - Results

Men
1st K-66 Nik Baker GBR
2nd E-9 Eduardo Bellini ESP
3rd F-35 Robert Teriitehau FRA

Women
1st F-12 Nathalie LeLievre FRA
2nd Z-14 Karin Jaggi SWI
3rd B-90 Sigrid Rondelez BEL

The Overall Event win was the icing on the cake for Nik Baker, sealing his
victory in the 1997 PWA Indoor World Championship and finishing what has been
an incredible come-back year after an injury fraught 1996.

Nathalie LeLievre lost out in the Madrid jump contest to Switzerland's Karin
Jaggi. However, LeLievre dominated in the racing, and like Nik Baker finished
the 1997 Indoor windsurfing season in style winning both the Overall Madrid
Fundole title and the 1997 PWA Indoor World Championship.

For 1998, the Indoor World Tour looks likely to grow further, expanding to
include venues in Istanbul, Sao Paolo and New York.

1997 PWA Overall Indoor World Tour Results
1st K-66 Nik Baker
2nd US-1111 Robby Naish
3rd F-808 Eric Thieme

1st F-12 Nathalie LeLievre
2nd Z-14 Karin Jaggi
3rd F-44 Valerie Ghibaudo

(C)SSM Freesports unless credited as: SSM / Dan Atns

<100307.1707@compuserve.com>[ back to INDEX ]

the wiNZurf news page