Gran Canaria 2017

While planning my trip to Gran Canaria this year I was on a mission.
I wanted to arrive early so I’d get completely dialed into the conditions.
I envisioned myself landing backloops and solid taka’s.
Maybe even some goiters on the wave.
So on the 10^th of June, 5 weeks ahead of the contest I arrived in GC, determined

However, due to some more Calima than usual we got a couple of unusually windless days for that time of the year. I didn’t get as much as training in as I was hoping for. I mean, there were a bunch of good sessions, but it takes way more time to get consistent in certain moves to be able to land them in a contest.
Added to that over the winter I’ve learnt to tweak my pushies but as a result I couldn’t stop myself from tweaking so if I didn’t go high enough I wouldn’t land them. Eventually I got it back though.

Having said that, there were also a couple of days with unusually big waves as well. Those two days were absolutely epic. I was sailing overpowered on 3,3 in 3-4m waves. It was breaking in one line across the bay. The action on the water that day was unreal. That was definitely one of my highlights this year.

It seems like I go through the same motions every year in Pozo.
I train in pretty windy conditions and think I’m ready.
And on competition day it goes from pretty windy, to extremely windy.
I end up sailing my 3,3 which I’ve barely used during training.
At this point I’m usually just happy I survive the heat and am surprised that I’m still busting out pushloops and forwards in such strong conditions.

All in all in Pozo I had quite good heats, but I didn’t go for broke in the two heats that mattered the most. So first I lost against Iballa. And then I lost against Lina Erpenstein who really stepped it up this year. I wasn’t too bummed about finishing 4^th, as long as I would get a second chance in the double elimination.

When we finally ran the double I was up against Justyna who was making a nice come back in the double. I could see she was fired up. On the water I couldn’t find the right ramps and my tweaking habit came back so I didn’t land my pushloops. I was punishing myself trying those pushies. It was hard to get that second jump in that heat so I couldn’t keep it together since I was struggling between going for wave rides or sailing up and looking for a ramp and finally I didn’t do well in either.

I don’t usually lose it during heats, but I came back to shore defeated knowing that I had lost. I’ve heard that finishing 4^th place is the worst, but in the end finishing 5^th place in the double elimination is the most damaging as it means you lost three heats in a row haha. In the end, losing didn’t bother me because at that point finishing fourth or fifth didn’t matter much to me. I was just disappointed with my sailing.
Anyway at the same time I was happy for Justyna as she sailed great and deserved that win!

I got over it quickly as I was staying the house with some fun loving girls like Maria, Serena, Arrianne and lina ! This was 5 weeks to remember for me.
Not everything is about the contest but what you make of your time there while training for it. It was a blast! My highlight was spending my 26^th birthday there and making everyone play Musical chairs !!

5^th place in Pozo. On to the next contest!