European Champs Day 1

The European Championships, taking place in Ourense (Galicia region of Spain), kicked off today with the mens and ladies prelims.

I´ve been here just a couple of days to figure out the feature which unfortunately is very flushy very slow, flat and small. It is mainly a wave feature with a left-hand shoulder. Hole moves are also possible (but very flushy) on the players right side and there is also a right-hand shoulder but this is also flushy.

The men were up first and from watching the top performers it was hard to believe that the wave was so difficult to get the moves out as they were pulling off big blunts, clean blunts, mcnasties and air loops.

Jon-Boy Best getting a McNasty in practice.

The Brits put in a great performance with James ´Pringle´ Bebbington making top 5 with a Mcnasty and air loop in his first ride.

Pringle in practice

Alan Ward and Sam Anderson also made the top 20 cut. Unfortunately Jon Best who had been pulling off some huge air loops and other big-scoring moves in practice sessions didn´t manage to get the moves going and missed out on the cut to semis. James Reeves also didn´t make the cut, but he put in a couple of solid rides considering he didn´t arrive until yesterday (he was originally just coming here from squirt but was a last-minute replacement for Dicky who recently injured his ribs) so had just a couple of rides on the wave yesterday evening when it was at a really high and very different level to today.

The ladies put in a more ´honest´ performance (reflecting the flushiness and lack of power of the feature). Roundhouses, a rare cartwheel and the occassional loop that didn´t flush (mine did unfortunately!) were the biggest scoring moves of the day. We are all finding it extremely difficult to get enough grrrr to make the roundhouses into blunts as the wave doesn´t provide any assistance at all.

Nina Haslova round-housing

So, my very vague run plan went something like: do as many ´flat moves´as possible on the left then head right and go for a loop. Thankfully we are using the European scoring system where shuvits score points! I can´t believe though that I had to plan shuvits both ways as part of my run - the last time I did that was the pre'worlds in NZ in 1998!! I just about got my run plan as I wanted but flushed on the loop, I think I need to practice more shuvits to ensure they score properly!! Perhaps I should also think about the best order of some of the move after my first round'house so I don´t forget some of the obvious e.g spin the other way. The disadvantage of competing to the European scoring system is that the final will be knock'out format (I hate them) and I´m pretty sure whoever gets a lucky (some of them aren´t ´lucky´ but no one is doing them consistently) sticky-loop at the right time is going to win.

Jen cleaning it

Ladies were cut to top 10 (despite their only being 17) for semis, and I came 5th. Brits Lowri and Jenny also made top 5 with Jenny winning the prelims (she had 2 solid rides and completed the only cartwheels of the ladies comp). Claire had been looking really good in her practice rides and seemed to have the feature completely wired and was retaining on a number of loops. Unfortunately she had a really unlucky flush early on in her second ride meaning she didn´t make the cut to 10.

C1s, Juniors and squirts are up tomorrow.

Flea

(now, apparently, also known as Fly!)