Augsburg ladies prelims and semis

Familiar scenes of umbrellas and wet kit started the day yesterday. A little ‘de ja vu’ from last week as once again I reluctantly put my damp thermals on, which for some reason I left on the line in the rain rather than putting them under the tarp where it wasn’t raining! 

30 women started in the line-up including a couple more Brits: Claire O'Hara and Flic Meares. My first ride was a good one though and although my 2^nd ride consisted of a fair amount of flushing and lacked in air loops I got through to the semis in 6^th. Ruth Gordon had a couple of awesome rides with some really vertical split wheels, cleans and in her last ride she landed a McNasty, she was 1^st heading into the semis. Nina Haslova took 2^nd with rides that included some nice loops and super clean spins on the river left shoulder.

We were up again for the semis early evening and because of my 6^th place I was in the first heat, meaning I didn’t have the pressure of seeing other peoples rides, but with the instant scoring computer system I also didn’t have the advantage of seeing what score I needed to get to make it through to the next round. 

My first ride had a fair amount of flushing and I just managed to get some clean left ends on the buzzer to give me a 203 point ride (less than my ride in the prelims). I tried to do more in my next ride but I didn’t really get my loops going well and once again flushed a number of times (if you worry about flushing, generally you will!). I was leading the first heat but S then had to wait and unfortunately hope that just one of the girls up in the next heat would flush more than me! Both Emily and Marlene from France got through with their first rides and Marlene had a really strong second ride with air loops and split wheels giving her the top spot. Nina wasn't getting the rides that she had in prelims and although Maria (Sweden) got some nice loops I wasn't sure whether either would get more than 203.33 points - they did, Nina was through just ahead of me with 206.66 and Maria scored around 213. Ruth had a solid second ride which put her into 2nd place. So the whole top 5 remained the top 5 and I was out in 6th by just 3 points. 

Ah well, the party was a good one and we have another competition next week. I'm not used to watching finals from the shore though - I've only missed out on 3 finals in the last 6 years of national and international competition, so I'm going to be cheering on all the girls and hoping that they will all be throwing down some big moves for me! 

The guys all went huge in their semis and it looked tough to make top 5. We saw some huge scores. 

Our very own Pringle with a nice entry move, just missed out on top 10. 

Stephen Wright was leading going into semis and despite some huge space godzillas unfortunately dropped to 6th place. 

Matthieu (France) broke 1000 points as he threw down just about every move possible in the feature. I can't remember the order of the other 4 but EJ, Peter Csonka, Simon Stroheimer and Dustin Urban were all up there. 

Finals are on today. James Weir has taken the OC1 title with a huge 16o-something points! Lee Pyke was 5th in the C1 finals.