In case you were surprised about the new name in the upper left corner: Yes, Sander proposed back in Greece and we got married in December. 🙂 ♥. Super happy & excited.
What did I want to write about? Oh yes, the Int. Snowkite Open, the European Snowkite Championship took place at Lake Reschen last weekend. After I couldn’t participate in last year’s Int. Snowkite Championship due to work I was super stoked to attend this year’s event. I had a beautiful view from my hotel room on the event area and it was exciting to watch the contest playground wake up every morning.
Friday was a beautiful day with terrific sunshine. First we started with Long Distance Race. It was planned as a 80 kilometer ride but with the warm temperatures the week before the event in the middle of the lake the ice was not thick enough to hold us. Therefore we were restricted to the upper corner of the lake. We got one hour and the challenge was to get as many kilometers on our backs in a three boy course as possible. I wasn’t much trained as I have only been snowkiting three times this year. However, I tried to ignore my hurting thighs and was still able to beat my opponent and got crowned European Champion in Long Distance Race.
On Saturday Race and Freestyle took place. I competed in both disciplines. In the morning we did four races which I all won. Yeah 🙂 I was on the smallest kite in the race (12 sqm Ozone Enduro), however, managed to get through and was very surprised with the good light-wind performance of my kite.
In the afternoon we competed in the Freestyle division. After some organizational trouble of who is in which group (they first wanted to mix skiers with snowboarders…) we got our elimination. As I was the only girl competing I had to compete with the guys. I was super scared of the conditions as it was only a centimeter of snow on the ice. Shortly before my heat I had to take in a big crash while training so I entered the competition with a hell of respect for the ice and did not ride very well. My first heat was against my Swiss friend Andrea Ammann who I am always super stoked to meet and I was so impress to see his progression. Well, I spare you the details, of course he won 😉 As I didn’t take the competition too serious this didn’t really matter a lot and it was nevertheless super exciting to watch the guy perform their tricks like the surface was as soft as powder.
On Sunday every single bone in my body hurt. Nevertheless the judges called on four more races. I don’t know how but somehow I managed to win the first race of the day. After that I couldn’t do it anymore. As I was racing quite solid I was save from defeat even by skipping out on the next two races. I wanted to get back to racing on the fourth race but the judges called it of due to the emerging bad weather. Well, not such a downer for me especially not with the second European Title in my pocket in the discipline Race 😉
It had a really good time at the Int. Snowkite Open. It was great to see many old and new faces from all over Europe and I had a really amazing and chilled-out time. Thanks to all the organizers, sponsors, judges, and to Resia for having us.
Pictures by mTwo Photo+Film and Raik Richter
Results:
- European Champion Long Distance Race
- European Champion Race
- Winner of the Swiss Snowkite Tour
- Best Girl Freestyle Snowboard (what a surprise being the only one who is stupid enough to enter with such scary-icy conditions)
