How Close is Too Close? | FPT Paros Day 2 Recap

Day 2 at the Freestyle Pro Tour Paros once again delivered, with the strong Meltemi blowing all throughout the night, greeting the riders at around 30 knots in the morning. The gameplan for the day? Double Eliminations. Otherwise known as a comeback round, the double elimination gives the riders who didn’t perform all too well in the single a second chance at a comeback. After the skippers meeting in the morning, it was time to get the show on the road.

First up on the menu was the Youth and Juniors fleet double elimination. The standout rider of he day was Yoad Shaham. After an exit in the second round of the single eliminaton, Yoad put on a show for the crowd landing Punetas and Air Funnels on the inside, Ponches on the outside, and even a Toad in his Semifinals heat.

However, the charging Israeli junior couldn’t best the same opponent who knocked him out in the single elim – Sardinia ripper Pier Bongianni. After winning the single elimination yesterday, the Italian only needed one heat to secure victory. Despite struggling on the outside, a big Shaka and a classic Sardinia-style Gozzada on the inside were enough to cement him as the winner of the Youth and Juniors fleet here in Paros.

As the final heat of the Youth and Junior elimination concluded, the Meltemi began dropping, and the start of the Pro Men’s competition was put on hold. As the day continued, and as morning turned into afternoon the wind once again began restarting. The flag came up for the start of the Men’s Double, and competitors hit the water after rigging their larger 4.8 and even 5.2 sails.

The first round started off with very light winds, forcing competitors to adapt to the conditions, and nowhere was this more visible than in Pier Bongianni’s Round 2 heat against Sokratis Saraliotis. Both on 4.8, Saraliotis opened the heat by pumping into a huge Shaka 360. However after he put that move on the board, the light winds made it a struggle for him to fill out the rest of his scoresheet. Meanwhile Pier took a different approach to structuring his heat, going smaller but ensuring to fill out his scoresheet, pulling out Esliders, Punetas, and even some Clew-First variations.

After his exit in the first round yesterday, Bodhi Kempen (Severne) was back with a vengeance, tearing through the elimination heat by heat, taking down Manolis Orfanos, Eugenio Marconi and Tigo Kort. The Dutch rider put his whole arsenal of moves on display with big Flaka and Shaka combos on the inside, pulling out a Pasko attempt off the wake of a passing while also reaching into his bag of sliding moves when the wind got lighter.

The longer the heats went on, the more the wind continued to build, and as expected, young superstar Takumi Moriya (Severne) was on fire. Taking down Youth and Juniors winner Pier and stopping Bodhi’s comeback run in it’s tracks. This reduced the fleet down to a final four riders – Takumi to face off against Jacopo Testa (GunSails / WeOne), with Yentel Caers (JP Australia / Neilpryde) awaiting the winner of that heat to challenge for a spot in the finals against Lennart Neubauer (Starboard / Severne).

As the sun started to lower over the horizon, the wind continued to get stronger and stronger – and the action more and more intense. The final four heats of the day were some of the closest, most nail-biting rounds of competition on tour in recent memory, all being decided by the difference of less than 2 points.

Testa vs Moriya hit the water, and fans on the beach immediately knew that it was going to be a heat for the ages. Takumi filled out his scoresheet on the inside with 3 combo moves – a Shaka Flaka, a Flaka Shaka and a Spock Culo, building on the port tack heat plan we saw from multiple riders beforehand. Testa also stomped a Flaka Shaka of his own on the inside, but most of his points in the heat came from big moves on the outside, including a big Shove-It Spock and Spock Culo of his own. The heat came down to the wire, with the judges calling a heat break to decide the winner – with Testa just coming out on top by a tiny 0.13 points.

Up next – Caers vs Testa. A heat we saw yesterday in the single, and in the FPT Sardinia finals. Both riders did not hold back, bringing their absolute A game in the now 20+ knot wind. Double Culo, Air Bob Culo, Air Funnel Burner and Spock Culo were all huge combos Yentel quickly put down on his scoresheet, rounded out with a Kabikuchi and Shove-It Spock to bank a 41.05 point heat. However Jacopo didn’t let up – pulling out massive combos of his own, stomping a Flaka Shaka Flaka on the inside, his signature Shove-It Spock Spock, Double Culo and a Spock Kono on the outside, rounding out his scoresheet with a Burner 360 and Kabikuchi. As the heat got off the water, the judges once again had to take a break to calculate the scores, with the difference between the two reaching as little as 0.01 points at a certain point – but in the end Yentel prevailed by less than one point, and secured a spot in the finals against Lennart.

Lennart vs Yentel is a final we’ve seen multiple times before – and just like every time before this one, it did not dissapoint. After securing a Flaka Ponch on the inside, Lennart went all-out on the moves on the outside, making full use of the new scoring format, doing 5 of hist best 6 moves on the outside, sticking a Double Burner, Spock Culo, Double Culo, Air Bob Culo and Kabikuchi on the outside to fill out his scoresheet.

Yentel took the exact same approach – securing an early Shove-It Spock on the inside, before fully focusing on his starboard tack, filling his scoresheet with an Air Funnel Burner, Air Bob Culo, Kabikuchi, Double Culo and Spock Culo; all on the outside.

Ultimately however, Lennart didn’t put a foot wrong all heat. With clinical percision, all of his moves but one were awarded a score over 7 by the judges – ultimately giving him enough points to once again complete the highest scoring heat of the day, and outperform Yentel by less than 2 points, claiming the victory in the Pro Men’s Double Elimination.

The day wrapped up with all riders heading out onto the water for a photo shoot super session, throwing down some massive moves freesailing without the pressure of competing, before the announcement of the victors of both doubles.

Despite running two full eliminations for both fleets already, there is more action with Super Sessions and experimental competition formats coming up in the next days. Stay tuned to the Freestyle Pro Tour social channels and follow the action here on freestyleprotour.com to make sure you don’t miss anything and keep up with the action!