Austria Competition update

Well i finally have an internet connection, so i can update you all on what’s been going on out here in Austria at the PWA Freestyle competition.  The journey started off pretty good with a short stay on the floor of Terminla 2 in Heathrow after picking up Simon Hurrey from Gatwick where he had just come back form Dahab.  We checked in with no hassles at all and were thinking that it couldn’t get any better than this.. Pic PWA/Schweiger

... well we were sooo wrong!!  Whilst sitting on the plane waiting to leave i looked out the window and saw our kit, “Simon, look they are loading our kit on” ‘Oh yeah, cool” ‘but why are they taking it away from the plane!?!” “Ah shit”!

The airline had totally messed up the order of the luggage and therefore couldn’t fit ours on!  What seemed like an easy journey just got much worse!  After negotiating with the airline once we had landed in Vienna, our kit turned up the night before the competition started at 2 in the morning!

So not the best start but then it did get better after that.  The first day we had gusty 6m weather and some heats were run, only problem was it was 3 degrees!!  I have never been so cold in my whole life!  I couldn’t feel anything after about 3 minutes on the water, then as soon as you warm up a bit when you get back to the shore the blood starts rushing back into your hand and fingers causing you excruciating pain!

Luckily though i managed to beat Tyson Poor from the States so was pleased with my performance.  I landed some nice switch moves and some flakas and grubbies, but i couldn’t do anything that involved letting go of the boom!

Simon was up against Colin Sifferlen from New Caledonia who just refused to go out because of the cold!  Nice one for Si!

The wind hasn’t returned yet and the forecast isn’t looking that good for the rest of the week.

Next up for me is Cheo Diaz from Margarita - bugger!!

Stay online for more updates as the competition goes on.

You can check out the first elimination ladder here