IKA News:
European Kiteracing Championships Day 4
The penultimate day of racing at the 2013 Kiteracing European Championships was a critical one with the top riders having to perform at their best in order to make it through to the platinum fleet tomorrow.
Four races for the men and two for the women with everything at stake - all the riders were fully focused. The Bridge family has reserved the two top spots at the leaderboard with Steph having a clear lead from second; Roose and Steph's son Oliver had a great performance yesterday extending even further his point difference from Russia's Doronin who lies in second.
Even though he is only 15 years old, Bridge showed great maturity today and with solid results in the top 5 managed to keep his lead and go into the medal series tomorrow with a safe lead from Leccese who is now in second place, after a very bad day for Doronin who dropped in 5th . A great performance today from Holland's van der Vlugt managed to climb him into 4th overall scoring three top 5 races.
In the women's fleet everyone was waiting to see if the young Russian Kalinina who managed to score 4 straight bullets yesterday, would made it to the top 10 and continue racing tomorrow as well. With only two races on today's schedule it would be a true challenge for her. Meanwhile Bridge had to keep in front of Roose in order to hold on to her top spot. But star of the day was again Kalinina – she scored another two bullets and marginally made it to the top ten with 6 first finishes and 8 disqualifications, not a frequent sight. Bridge managed to stay close behind her and score two second finishes and extended even further her lead from Roose who scored two thirds.
With Bridge on the lead and Poland's Janiak completing the top 10 in the men's fleet it is all about tomorrow with four races in schedule and everything possible. The small number of riders doesn't allow many opportunities for covering the lost ground and it's going to be hard for those that already have built a safe lead to lose their place.
Same schedule for the women as well, and it remains for another day to see if mother and son will achieve the remarkable and be crowned European Champions for 2013 in men and women.
As we go into the final day tomorrow the championship is climaxing and all eyes are turned to Hang Loose Beach. A massive 14 races for the womens fleet and 15 for the two mens flights have been completed.
Event coverage tomorrow will include live streaming of the event at www.livestream.com/extremience as well as live tracking provided by TracTrac at http://bit.ly/17Mic2Q
A replay of the livestream is available as well as replay of all tracked races of the gold fleet from the final series.
Leaderboard after Day 4 – End of Opening Series:
Mens Fleet:
1. Oliver Bridge (GBR / North) – 9 pts
2. Riccardo Leccesse (ITA / Ozone) – 25 pts
3. Maxime Nocher (FRA / North) – 31 pts
4. Rolf van der Vlugt (NED / Airush) – 41 pts
5. Blazej Ozog (POL / North) – 42.3 pts
Full Results: http://sailwave.com/results/2013Kiterac ... alMen.html
Womens Fleet:
1. Steph Bridge (GBR / North) – 19 pts
2. Katja Roose (NED / Airush) – 27 pts
3. Christine Boenniger (GER / Flysurfer) – 45 pts
4. Agnieszka Grzymska (POL / Ozone) – 52 pts
5. Tatiana Sysoeva (RUS / Ozone) – 75.3 pts
Full Results: http://sailwave.com/results/2013Kiterac ... Women.html
The daily video can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpRtnvVZq8o
Photos from the fourth day can be found here: http://bit.ly/177XDeT