Bright sun, strong wind and weather temperature rising up to 30oC – just like African weather, but almost 100 competitors from Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Russia were delighted by such conditions last weekend in Svencele, where the Lithuanian leg of DFDS Seaways Baltic Cup and Formula Windsurfing European Cup took place.[more]
This year a three day long race attracted a record number of participants, including world leading windsurfers and kitesurfers. They competed in four different classes: Formula Windsurfing, Raceboard, Techno 293 and IKAFormula Kite.
The competition between windsurfers was high from the first day. “The weather is good, wind is strong, so you can’t expect anything more,” said well known Latvian windsurfer Janis Preiss. “But it’s a tricky place, because there’s one wind strength on the shore and another in the water, so I have to make hard decisions which equipment to choose.”
“Another challenge is that we cannot change our equipment according to the conditions in the water, because it is very shallow here and we have to wade a lot. Thus, many athletes sail with a little too big equipment and had some
problems because of that,” said one of the best Lithuanian windsurfers Gediminas Gresevicius.
Surprisingly, Formula Windsurfing class results were the same as last year’s: Latvian athlete Janis Preiss left all others behind, second was Polish Filip Korczycki and third Estonian Martin Ervin.
In the Raceboard class Latvians dominated with such windsurfing veterans as Guntars Rozenbergs in first place and Ilona Grinberga in second, leaving young Lithuanian windsurfer Darius Daraska in third.
In the IKA-Formula Kite class well-known Lithuanian Viktoras Seputa won without any struggle. Estonian Madis Kallas was faster than another Lithuanian Mindaugas Mockevicius and won the second place.
Techno 293 was lead by young and beautiful girl from Latvia Ketija Birzule. She managed to bump the race and left Estonians Alfred Kalm and Karl Kask behind her. “I’m shocked, but very happy. Sometimes girls
are stronger than boys,” laughed Ketija after prize giving ceremony.
This event is organized by the non-profit organization, Ekstreme-sports.lt. It is the most important windsurfing competition in Lithuania. Points gathered during this competition will be included in world ranking for the IKA-Formula Kite and Formula Windsurfing Classes.
