Highlights: Day 6 at the World Cup Sylt - Mortefon catches up, newcomer surprises

After two windless days, it initially looked as if Thursday at the Mercedes-Benz Windsurf World Cup Sylt would also be rather calm. By midday, however, the rain clouds dispersed and brought with them a northerly breeze that steadily grew stronger.

Maciek Rutkowski, who rode extremely well on Sunday and is leading the event standings, naturally wanted to build on this. Everything went according to plan, the Pole rode confidently into the final, but only finished third behind his closest rival Pierre Mortefon. However, it was a newcomer who crossed the finish line first: 18-year-old Johan Søe from Denmark had already qualified for the final several times on Sunday and won his first elimination on the PWA Tour today!

Sebastian Kördel's first elimination didn't go quite as well as planned, he briefly lost his way in the semi-final and ended up in 12th place, and after a false start in the semi-final, he didn't make it past 14th place in the next heat either. With fourth place in the third and final elimination of the day, he at least managed a conciliatory finish. With a total of seven runs, there are already two strings to his bow, meaning that Kördel only slipped down one place to seventh in the overall standings.

At the front, Maciek Rutkowski and Pierre Mortefon drove very strongly with small slips, finishing 3rd, 8th and 3rd and 2nd, 9th and 2nd respectively. There has been no change in the standings so far, but Mortefon has come within a wafer-thin 1.3 points of Rutkowski. Behind him, Amado Vrieswijk is now in third place, having won the second elimination of the day and can forget his poorer results from Sunday thanks to the strings.

Finn vs Foil: Taty Frans makes it to the final

With the wind picking up considerably, Taty Frans switched from foil to fin in the second race and made it straight through to the final, where he was eliminated due to a false start. After that, however, the man from Bonaire was unable to build on his good run. Jimmy Thieme also decided in favour of the Finn in the meantime.

By contrast, the day went much better for the French: Antoine Albeau, who was struggling with severe back pain on Sunday, reached the final twice. Nicolas Goyard, who has shown little of his foil dominance of recent years, won the third heat.

After a 15th place in the first elimination, Nico Prien was always eliminated early, in the end after a major crash on the second lap. Malte Reuscher did not make it past the small final. In the event rankings, both are now directly behind each other in 17th and 18th place.

Standings after seven eliminations (two strings)

1. Maciek Rutkowski
2. Pierre Mortefon
3. Amado Vrieswijk
4th Matteo Iachino
5. Mateus Isaac
6th Johan Søe
7th Sebastian Kördel
8th Enrico Marotti
9th Nicolas Goyard
10th Jordy Vonk
17th Nico Prien
18. Malte Reuscher

The World Cup Sylt continues tomorrow

The wind forecast is a bit of a grab bag. So far it looks as if, after light winds in the morning, up to 20 knots from the south/south-west are expected during the course of the day. This promises either more slalom eliminations or the start of the double elimination in freestyle.

World champions and cover boys at the surf stand

A great visit to the surf stand: the new wave world champion Marcilio Browne came by and took a look at his cover shot from the April issue. Ricardo Campello was also visibly proud to be featured on the cover of the 2023 surf calendar is. And Robby Swift reported on the IWT contest in Fiji, the pictures of which can be seen in the current issue.