BKSA Redcar (10/2009)

This weekend was the final round of the British Championships. After winning the first two events, all I needed was to finish higher than 8^th to win the overall title (British Champion). The last BKSA Kiteival was held in Redcar with the event running from Thursday to Sunday. Saturday being the last day of competition because the Presentation night for the whole series was in the evening. Sunday was set aside as a freeride day.

Thursday morning was the start of the kitesurf side of the event with the Pro’s taking stage. I was one of three judges for this competition, so I had to make sure I made all the correct decisions as the British Championship for both Men and Women were still at stake! We managed to finalised the Pro Men down to Ali Barret, Ned Taylor and Sam Light but unfortunatly ran out of wind before we ran the final! In the womens it was a clear win for Hannah Whiteley allowing her to take the British Championships with ease.

Overall Pro Men Kitesurf results-                                           Overall Pro Women Kitesurf results

1^st Sam Light                                                                                      1^st Hannah Whiteley

2^nd James Boulding                                                                        2^nd Helen Thompson

3^rd Ned Taylor                                                                                   3^rd Nicky Rudd

The next morning started off in a bad way, with the little wind we had that was also coming from over the town, it meant it was looking like things were going to be held back till conditions improved. As the wind started to push through the head judge decided to send the Juniors out first as they had a much better chance of having a decent heat and landing some good tricks. Sure enough the juniors was run smoothly so they sent out the Womens Landboarders followed by the Womens Buggyers. Conditions were slowly deteriorating, so after the womens buggy, the competition was called off for the day. Some of us decided to go out and freeride anyway as the wind was just about do able, I was still landing some low level Shifty 3s, a couple of Slim Chances when the wind was up and other various tricks.

In the evening, all the competitors were invited to the local skatepark, where Red Bull had provided us with a lovely BBQ. After the food, we went off for a skate which was so much fun- totally forgetting I had to keep myself in good shape for the competition. Either way it didn’t matter as Saturday had no wind all day and the final results were based on the results over the Swansea and Blackpool results.

In the evening we all dressed as smart as possible and attended the BKSA Presentation night and what a night! I am so pleased to have finally won a British Championships! A massive well done to AJ Phillipson and Ash Garwood with a well deserved 2^nd and 3^rd place. For information about the other results in the different classes please CLICK HERE.

The final day of the event couldn’t had been any better- we had the conditions we were asking for all week. Cross shore, sunny and very windy! I took my 10.5 Ion 4 out for a 2 hour session. I mixed up my riding as the conditions got windier and windier by riding powered and doing passes to start with, moving onto some inverts and board off variations, finally to end with a cool kiteloop session with AJ who managed to do his biggest Kiteloop ever and slammed so hard on the landing that I was surprised he managed to just stand up and walk it off.

Overall Pro Men’s Landboard results

1^st Lewis Wilby

2^nd AJ Phillipson

3^rd Ash Garwood