Gabriele Steindl: Professional Kitesurfer & Freelance Writer - Action, Lifestyle & Travels
15
Jul 04
PKRA World Cup Fehmarn, Germany, 4-9 July 2004
For the second year the PKRA and her riders came down to the island of Fehmarn – the ‘Hawaii of Germany’ as people call it here – north of Hamburg in the Bismark Sea. The location of the event, however, changed from last year’s to the Wulfener Hals, a huge camping ground in the southeast of the island, which offers a big sand spit in the middle of the sea, quite ideal for different wind conditions as the competition could be hold on either side of the sand split.
A total of 34 men and 11 women registered and were hoping for conditions better than last year – back then us riders spent almost 5 days on standby, freezing in the equipment tent as rain was pouring down like crazy.
It wasn’t raining t h a t much this year, however, conditions were far from great. On the second day, we had wind all day, however, I couldn’t tell how many knots as it was suuuper gusty – some moments super strong, some moments next to nothing – so, luck was surely an issue.
I was up against Angela Peral from Spain, who just came second at the last event in Cabarete – where she beat World Champ Cindy Mosey in the single elimination!! Well this time, I was riding stronger and advanced to the next round. I also boosted the ‘biggest air of the day’ when I hit a gust and went off like a catapult!
The days that followed were not that exciting as the wind left us once again… luckily there were quite a few other ‘no wind’ activities for us such as golf, trampolin – we fixed a bar and it was THE perfect handle pass training!! – etc.
Only the morning of the second last day brought back some wind…and little rain. Mh, we could run a few heats – also mine against Kiki Karlsson (SWE) – however, the wind died slowly during the late morning was gone completely by noon.