What a weekend!
Clean, glassy, 1-2ft waves and a nice slope was what greeted all the competitors on Saturday morning. The event was packed with action, and a couple of shocks too, so read on for the full event report!
The Saturday heats saw everybody given the chance to skim twice. Three 4 man heats, short break, then another 3 heats. After the all heats were run through, we totalled everybody's scores up and the top 8 made it through to the semi's which was to be held on the Sunday.
This is where the first upset nearly happened. One the favourites for placing in the top 3, Adam Wootton, just scraped through into 8th place, taking the last available slot to make the semi-finals. By his own admission, he wasn't skimming at his best, and he was gutted to hear that his buddy Ginger George Harris had actually got a higher Saturday score.
Sunday Semi Final 1
(Adam Wootton, Mark Mason, James Thurgood, George Harris)
Four Paignton locals had been drawn in the same semi final, including 3 of the hot favorites. (Adam Wootton, Mark Mason and James Thurgood) In the semi's and finals the contest resorts to a top 2 advance format, so we knew one the favorites was going to be out, but who was it going to be?
With just 15 seconds left in semi final 1, Adam Wootton sideslipped out to a clean peak, wrapped it, and rode it back in to the beach, whilst throwing in a shuv-it for good measure. Upon totalling up the scores, it became clear that this one wave had edged Adam into 2nd postion by just half a point from James Thurgood, and therefore allowed him to advance to final along with Mark Mason.
Lesson 1:
Adam had illustrated an important point. Its SO important to get as many moves/rides completed as possible, right up to the final blow of the horn. Up until that point, James was going through to the final, but THAT ONE WAVE at 15 seconds to go, gave Adam the half point advantage needed to progress to the final.
Lesson 2:
Because the set waves were few and far between, many competitors were standing on the beach waiting on the next good waves to come through during their heats. Some were pro-actively laying down flat land tricks in between sets, and therefore adding to their possible points totals. So the lesson is to use all available time wisely during the heat, because when heats are decided on half points, you can't afford to be standing around waiting for waves.
Sunday Semi Final 2
(Ned Weight, Liam Meyer, Chris Smith, James Aldred)
Semi number 2 was fairly evenly matched. There wasn't much between all 4 skimmers, and to add to the tension, there was the fierce competition between Welsh friends Chris and James. There wasn't as much drama as in semi 1, but everybody but in a solid performance, which eneded with Liam Meyer and Chris Smith advancing to the final. Again the difference between 2nd and 3rd place came down to half a point, re-inforcing the 2 lessons above.
Sunday Final
(Mark Mason, Adam Wootton, Liam Meyer, Chris Smith)
All 4 guys lined up ready for the 15 minute final - all eager to gain maxiumum points to kick start their tour tally.
They were all pretty evenly matched, but the first 5 minutes saw Mark have a shakey start. He wasn't landing or completing many rides, and you could see he was getting a little stressed. Ginger George shouted some support to the man they call "Moose", and with 10 minutes left he started to turn his form around by getting some nice wraps to cover up's and some nice 180 airs.
Adam was skimming out of his skin, determined to make up for a bad showing on Saturday, while Liam threw down some sweet wraps and 180 pop shuv-its. Chris was having a good final with some lovely switch re-entries.
After 15 minutes of intense skimboarding, the lads were understandably knackered! All that was left was for the judges to total the scores.
Final results with tour points allocated. (Prize winnings in brackets)
1: Mark Mason (
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