Greets Toby and Alf,
been lurking on the forum today and seen this message.
first of all thanx for the Hi Toby, please have mine in return.. hope ya are doing well.. here it is ok.. kiteboarding to the full.. yesterday was a cool session and my plywood board ended up in 2 part.. that's 2 board (my olry and my ply) in 1.5 month.. who says I was smart ahaha
about the judging.. well I was there from Friday to Sunday, to see me mates and to work with Christo.. concidering that Christo was out of the game (he had a very serious problem at the first heat, nearly killed himself and had a big scared !!) I don't think that my point of view can be seen as biased !!! to sum up, the average level was quite high and the wind condition very poor (high but very windy wind, total flat water) and it was all the time a great show.. but the judging was one of the biggest rip off I've ever seen. first of all in the 1/2 Martin Vari was out and honestly he was far above the others of his hit (all wakeboarders).. then the 1st final.. Julian Sudrat makes 1 , Mark Shinn 2.. even if Julien is a great friend of mine, I believe that Mark should have been first (here we are talking about points, not a show !! right although Julien was more spectacular).. then we don't know why but there has been a second final (lets say a looser one trial) with the same folk (not a full run).. Franz score 1.. Malik does good but ain't above the others, I would say a bt under.. then and we don't know why but they even did a 3rd final.. Mark wins it.. normaly to be the winner you should have won 2 session out of 3.. but here is the result
1/ Mark Shinn
2/ Malik Bouchenafa
3/ Julien Sudrat
4/ Franz Olry
5/ Hervé Bouré
6/ Bertrand Fleury
7/ Etienne Lhote
8/ Chris Gilbert
9/ Martin Vari
10/ Arnaud Murcia
I like Malik and feel it rides very well but he was not 2nd for sure.. in my eyes Julien should have won the contest and Mark should have been second.. for me Malik would have been in the 5 or 7th..
Hervé and new Etienne Lhotte were OUTSTANDING !!!
anyway it is not the first time judging sux and certainly not the last time.. latest example Christo lost in front of Porcella (at the Red bull) while Porcella had a 1 mn session (out of 6) because he lost his gear..
please explain me how you can win without riding !!!!
about a guy called Fabrice working as webdesigner for christophertasti.com, well I'm sorry but don't know that guy.. and I'm the guy behind chris's website..
to see who is working on the team it's pretty easy, simply goes to the credit page
ok I have to go, there's some wind and I need to break another board (kidding..)
best regards
Greg
greg@christophertasti.com