Venezuala World Tour 3rd!!!!!!!!!

After spending too much time last year concentrating on what I couldn’t do rather then what I could do my efforts in competition went down hill after 2006. Here in Venezuala for the 3^rd round of the PKRA 2008 my main goal was to go out have fun and do everything that I could bigger and more powerful then normal to get my adrenalin buzz and basically have fun! There is something so satisfying from the jolt you feel through your whole body as you put your kite low and pop hard into your move. Well what a result!

I have never ridden so well in a competition ever, but have decided that perfect flat water conditions are not all its cracked up to be as it gives you too much time to think about going into a trick, so over in coche where the wind blows bolt offshore and the water stays butter flat I couldn’t land my air handle pass and in a tough heat against Susi Mai from Cabrinha I landed the blind moves that I could do, but no cigar on the air pass. To beat Susi I needed that pass. Well I went out from stage one of the competition really early on and found myself once again in 9^th place and once again very miserable, but a few specially chosen songs on the ipod and some sessions on the water while most people were stirring from their bed soon set me right again in the head.

In fact it turned out that Susi actually did me a favour. You only have to win 2 heats in the first stage of the competition to reach 3^rd and 4^th place but in the second stage of the competition to get back in the game you have to go up against each individual rider to make it all the way up to first place. That means winning 8 heats from where I went out in stage one. That’s 80 minutes of solid riding and landing all your hardest tricks. Well for me I didn’t quite make 8 heats, but I made 5 and while building my rankings I also built my confidence.

I had looked over the route I had to rise up the rankings and had decided that if I won 3 more heats I would be very happy because that would include taking out Naish team mate Jalou Langeree. Jalou and I ride at a similar level, so I knew I would have to kite powered and land many tricks to take her out and if I managed it that would be awesome. Winning these 3 heats up to and including Jalou would see me to 5^th place, but then I thought if I ride my socks off then perhaps I could make it to 3^rd taking out other Naish team mate Karolina Winkowski and then coming up against my downfall in the first stage of the competition Susi Mai.

Well for this contest I literally wrote a few things down on paper. I wrote down all the moves that I could do, a game plan of exactly what my hardest moves were and then put it out my head that there was a chance I wouldn’t land them. This proved really good because as I was riding in the 3 minute transistion time before my heat I saw the paper in my head, concentrated and went for it. Failure was not an option and although I did crash a couple of moves I then imagined I was at the start of the heat focused and then did it right afterwards this time landing it. I landed raileys to blind as my move off the buzzer, downloop raileys to blind as my second or third move and air handle passes as my third or 4^th move. This left me with the entire second half of my heat to either fill with less technical moves if I was against someone not so difficult or time to try and land my blind judge and back mobe against someone who was difficult. It was so much fun.

The day was frantic. The heats were run alternate men and women, so I had one heat ‘rest’ between each of mine. However a rest included coming off the water to find out if I had won or lost with kite still in the air as there is not much beach space nor time. After this the winner (me – yeay) would have to run up the beach and back to the top of the competition area with the kite in the sky and then head back out on the water to do the heat again. I had to do this 5 times and it was exciting to the max especially when I crashed my kite so hard in Carolina’s heat that it deflated and had swim back in the from the middle of the competition area, find another kite to borrow and get back on the water within 10 minutes! Jeez, red face winner went to me!!

(Thanks to everyone who helped me - honestly, wouldn't have done it without you!!!)

Anyhow, here I am this morning slightly hungover, but once again wide awake before 7am imagining all the moves that I want to work on. Most mornings I would wake up imagining them and stumble down the beach after a cup of coffee and some toast but this morning, my legs are not really co-operating with my body and they ache just to stand on, so in my imagination these moves will stay until later this afternoon.

I came 3^rd here and I am super happy and cannot wait for the next competition to strike again!