World Cup Sylt: First freestyle, then slalom - Søe and Lemeteyer continue their streak

In an interview on the event stage after the race, Justine Lemeteyer tried to keep her cool: "Nothing is certain yet, I need two more races and I'm trying to stay focussed," said the Frenchwoman. But she now has more than just one hand on the trophy at the Citroën Windsurf World Cup on Sylt, winning both foil races in the women's event again today.

She showed her class impressively: after cautious starts, her pursuers Blanca Alabau and Marion Mortefon were both ahead at one point, but Lemeteyer kept pushing forwards with outstanding jibes: "They were close races, probably the best here so far."

Balz Müller freestyles on the foil

The fact that the riders enjoyed the races much more today than yesterday was mainly due to the fact that there was significantly less seaweed on the North Sea. The bright sunshine also made the still very fresh wind a little more bearable, which was blowing diagonally offshore this time - much stronger further out on the slalom course than on land.

The initial hope was to be able to sail freestyle today, as the judges had already scheduled the skippers' meeting at 7.30 am. Unfortunately, getting up early was in vain as the wind was much weaker than forecast. Balz Müller was the first on the water - with a foil: "I looked at the rules carefully, there's nothing about fins or foils." In the light wind, Balz naturally had a big advantage. A short time later, Lennart Neubauer was also seen warming up on the foil. But Balz also had to admit: "You can't really judge it the same way, it should be separated into fin and foil." But after three heats it was already over, the wind just wasn't strong enough. Too bad for the only German starter Mathias Genkel, who was eliminated by Antoine Albert.

Michele Becker and Fabian Wolf in the small final

After a long wait to see if the wind would pick up after all, the competition organisers finally switched to foil slalom in the afternoon. Many riders who had not done well in the last few days wanted to make up ground: Matteo Iachino, Maciek Rutkowski and Amado Vrieswijk skied significantly faster than before and fought their way into the A final. But victories were only possible where Johan Søe was not: the Dane won all his heats and also the final by a large margin. "I had a good start and then found a good line between the waves," he reported afterwards.

While the best German so far, Nico Prien, had to return to land after the first round, Michele Becker fared better than in the last few days. He made it into the B final and finished eleventh. Fabian Wolf finished directly behind him: "That was fun today, less seaweed, but an amazing amount of swell out there," he said afterwards and was not dissatisfied with twelfth place: "I just have to get a lot faster for the A final. I'm missing a few kilos that I want to put on in the winter."

In the hope of still being able to ride freestyle tomorrow, there will be another early skippers' meeting. For the afternoon and the next few days, however, the forecasts don't give much hope.