Report: La Torche

Bonjour mes amis! My latest adventure to La torche, France has come to an end.
This was the first time in 20 years that a windsurfing worldcup was held here. These 10 days would be filled with men’s waves and men and women’s slalom.
I watched some of the slalom video’s from back then and the conditions looked heavy. On my way there I was mentally preparing myself for the toughest conditions I would ever slalom in. However as it turned out, we only had one suitable day for competition. And that day they chose to to waves.

Rightly so. It was probably the best wave contest I’ve seen since I’ve been on tour. The guys can make any wave spot look good. But give then some proper wind & waves and they will absolutely blow your mind!! I stood on the beach for 4-5 hours straight because I didn’t want to miss anything. What a show. What made it interesting was that the wind at first was quite on shore but slowly shifted and made for a starboard tack competition! For me this would truly show who’s the best overall wavesailor. I was impressed by so many sailors and I’m happy for Ricardo Campello winning his first wave event, Thomas traversa making it on the podium in his home country ( the crowd was huge!!), and Browzinho making it back on the podium as well. But for me the standout sailor was victor Fernandez. He had such a fluid and smooth wavesailing style. It was a pleasure to watch.
As soon as I got the chance tho, I went out on my freestyle kit. Not the best choice of equipment in waves like that but better than nothing! I had a 20 minute fully overpowered session trying burners going out and avoiding getting washed coming in. After 10 minutes I got too comfortable and I got washed anyway, Swam all the way back to shore and saw that I had broken a batten.

What to do the rest of the week without wind?
Had loads of coffee dates with my Turkish roommates, signing sessions, practiced my french with everybody and I went surfing with family Hervoche. Usually I don’t like surfing because I get seasick, while waiting for the waves. But after catching 2-3 waves I was way too excited to even think about seasickness! So much fun.Another day I occupied myself with helping out with the article of the day for windmag magazine. Of course I did it about the girls! Check it out here!
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Highlight of the week for me was competing in the tow in contest. We had a practice run one day and official competition the next. I was too late to register for the official tow in. but I went over to the judges and told them I wanted to challenge the guys because I was the only girl anyway. And they said yes !! Yahoo! Honestly though, as I made my way to the beach I realized the swell was much bigger than the day before. Straight away I started rethinking my choice of entering the competition. Before I could think too much Duncan came over to me and gave me the good news that I would be the first up. No backing out anymore SQ! Antoine Albeau was driving the jetski and did such a good job at it! I did 3 jumps in total, an Air flaka, Pushloop attempt and lastly I caught my best wave and landed a Pasko combination move. I think because it was a double rotation I made it right up to 2nd place behind Ricardo and before Antoine Martin! Insaaanee!! Too cool to be on the podium with the guys. Even though it was a fun competition 🙂

I missed the first event in Turkmenistan and was hoping to compete in the last 3 events so I could discard the first one and still get a good ranking or maybe even the world title. But this won’t be possible for me anymore. Either way I will still go to the last slalom event in New Caledonia.

Now The focus will be on the next event in Maui. I can’t even say how Excited I am to be part of this event. Make sure to follow it all on www.pwaworldtour.com