INTERVIEW WITH LENNART NEUBAUER AND BODHI KEMPEN
The Freestyle Pro Tour brought back freestyle to paradise. ¨The King & Queen of the Caribbean¨ took place in Bonaire, and Team Severne did not leave empty handed.
Photos: @ aalvaamedia
The Young Greek Lennart Neubauer returned from injury to claim his best result so far, a solid second place.
Brouwersdam local Bodhi Kempen proved why winter training is essential and secured himself a spot in the top 4.
THIS IS HOW THEY EXPERIENCED IT.
LENNART
Q. Lennart! First competition after your knee surgery and straight one of your best results ever. Could you give us an insight into how you felt on the water?
¨It was not one of my best, it was definitely my best heats I’ve ever sailed. It’s been the best I’ve felt on the water, it’s been the best I´ve been mentally… it´s just been the best overall package I’ve ever brought to competition. Obviously that came with a lot of training outside the water and a lot of mental preparation, countless hours of just preparing for this specific event, for the first one. I felt like I was unbeatable. I felt like I was one of you know, even the contenders obviously for the event but also for the ongoing events. So that gave me a big big Confidence boost. Now, I’m aiming for the very top for the next events. Fighting it out with obviously, Yentel Jaco, Steven….They all want to win as well. It’s gonna be very tough, but I’m going to train like an idiot to be able to manage that¨.
Q. We saw you on the SEVERNE FREEK 5.6 in some of your heats, how did the sail work for you? What moves did you do with it?
¨Yeah, I was on the 5.6, and actually on the 5.6 FREEK I sailed the best heat I’ve ever had against Yentel. The sail works extremely well. I was very very happy with it, considering that I tried it five times before competing. So I get used to it quickly and definitly planning on using the sail in many more heats where there is light wind. I could do air funnel burner, double culos, spock culos, kabikuchi, flaka ponch, flaka shaka, basically all the moves I was planning on doing, I could do on the 5.6 that was a big advantage¨.
Q. What are the plans for the rest of the season?
¨Well the plan for the rest of the season is that I´m gonna do every EFPT there is, which is not all the proving ground EFPT´s, but all the important EFPT´s, alll important PWA’s and mixing some junior wave action as well. So it’s gonna be full calendar for sure. And I have high hopes for this season. Although I didn’t have that much time on training. I´m gonna try and train a lot between the events and by the end of the year I hope you can witness a different Lennart¨.
BODHI
Q. Bodhi, 4th in the FPT King and Queen of the Caribbean, how did your winter training program look like?
¨My winter training was in Tarifa. I have been there for 1 month and sailed a lot in all sorts of conditions to get my moves more consistent. The rest of the winter I trained at the Brouwersdam and we had some really strong winds so that was also good to train¨
Q. We saw you going mental on the PSYCHO and the FREEK. Which sizes did you use and which moves took you up to 4th place?
¨The wind was pretty light during the competition so I used the 94 PSYCHO and the 5.2 FREEK which are both great in those conditions¨
Q. What’s coming up next for you this season?
¨For this season i want to do all the big events in the FPT and also the PWA events¨
CONGRATULATIONS TEAM!
Results
1. Youp Schmit
2. Lennart Neubauer
3. Yentel Caers
4. Bodhi Kempen
6. Tim Gerdes
17. Oda Johanne
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