Gusty winds but good results at the Kitearea

This weekend the first round of the German KiteLandBoarding championships were held at the Kitearea in Munsterappel and it was great being back in the German scene.

I arrived late in the afternoon on Friday to find teamriders Nick Stimpel and Florian Giehl already warming up for the competition.

Sunset session

Weather was good, sun was shining and the eastern winds were a bit tricky but all riders made the most of it.

Saturday morning we were on the spot quite early to build up the PL tent and prepare for the day.

First thing on the competition schedule was racing, winds were gusty but more than enough to do two heats.

The first heat started good with Nick taking the lead but after a round or two the footstrap on his board came undone so he was out, after quickly fixing up the board race two soon was started. The second heat was very exiting as there were a lot of fast riders but in the end Nick took the first place after a couple of the other pilots tangled up in the downwind corner of the track, well played Nick!

Race on

After the races the freestyle comp started, but after the first couple heats the rest of the heats were postponed because the winds were just too gusty to do a safe competition.

Guntram (German PL rep.) made good use of the strong winds and took out his Vapor to do some buggying.

Guntram ripping it up in the Buggy

In the evening everybody headed to the camping place for a quick (cold!) shower and at 8pm the famous schnitzel dinner started, good food!

Sunday morning again early up and off to the Kitearea, 9am the briefing for the day was held and soon after the briefing the freestyle competition was on.

We saw some awesome riding with all competitors making the best use of the tricky winds, and some of the competitors needed longer heats because it was hard for the judges to decide the better rider.

Romain, foot out

One of the most difficult to judge heats was the one were Romain and Florian (both PL team) had to ride against each other, Florian has gotten a lot better which is no wonder because his Homespot is the Tempelhof airfield in Berlin, and Romain is always on top of his game so the two of them put up a good show.

In the end Florian had showed a little more than Romain so he got through to the final round and made it to second place, awesome stuff Flo!

Florian kickin #ss!

After all freestyle heats were done there were two more races held in which Nick again showed his skills and ended up with the number one spot on the podium.

Freestyle:

1^st place Pascall Lohmann

2^nd place Florian Giehl

3^rd place Romain Feaux

Winning will get you wet...

Race:

1^st place Nick Stimpel

2^nd place Yannick Swickert

3^rd place Pascal Lohmann

Nick taking first