Let the season begin

The 2022 freestyle season has officially started. The Freestyle Pro Tour (FTP) just finalised its first event at Lake Neuseedl in Austria, and the Severne team occupied podium positions in both the women’s and men’s fleets.

FREESTYLE SEASON KICK-OFF

With a five day holding period, the action commenced on day two in the early hours of the day. A 7 am start was followed by a full day of action, all the way until 5 pm. The competition crew managed to make it through a single and most of a double elimination. 

With winds being on the light side and patchy at places, tactics and consistency made the competition even more tight than usual, while also favouring the slightly lighter riders.

On the women’s side, we saw many new faces come up against the 2021 European Freestyle champion Maaike Huvermann on the chocolate lake in Austria. The flatter water of the lake allowed for easier sliding moves for most girls making the competition even tougher for Maaike. 

However, with a combination of both sliding and some power moves Maaike showed the consistency needed to make her way to the top to claim the victory in the single elimination to keep her winning strike going on the EFPT.

On the men’s side, we saw a whole new host of upcoming talents climbing up the ranks.

In the single elimination the most outstanding performance must have been from full Severne rider Jamie Howard from the UK who impressed the judges with his amazing pop despite the light wind conditions to score the highest heat total of round 2. In the process, he took down Adrien Bosson before tweaking his knee on his last move in that same heat. This made it difficult for Jamie to repeat this performance further in the event.

Gear used; Freek 4.8 , Psycho 92

The winds remained on the lighter side for the quarter finals. Being one of the heavier riders on tour, the 2021 winning streak of Amado Vrieswijk came to an end as he narrowly missed out on a spot in the semi finals. With stronger winds in his first heat of the double elimination Amado was able to perform closer to his full potential, scoring the highest heat total of the event with 32,52 points.

Making it back on the podium for the first time since 2015 was Dieter Van der Eyken who put down a solid performance to start his 2022 Freestyle campaign. After passing the quarter finals against teammate Jamie Howards, Dieter got the machine fired up for his last two heats with a brilliant performance in the loser final to grab 3rd in the single elimination and eventually 3rd for the opening event of the season.

Gear used; Freek 5.2, Psycho 102

During the double elimination, we saw an upcoming rider from Netherlands Bohdi Kempen put down some solid heats to confirm his spot in the top 16 before being stopped by local hero and comeback king of the double elimination; Michael Czech.

Michael Czech might have been the outstanding sailor of the double elimination to fight himself all the way up to shared 7^th place after showing immense consistency throughout all of his heats.

Gear used;
– Bodhi Kempen – Freek 5.2, Psycho 92
– Michael Czech –  Freek 4.4, Psycho 82

Local hero Michael Czeck at Lake Neusiedl

Congratulations to all the team for their excellent performance. The next stop of this year’s Freestyle Pro Tour will be Vieste in Italy from the 9 to the 12th of June. You can follow all of the latest info on this year’s tour by visiting https://efpt.net/

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