The 2011 Vietnam PWA Grand Slam- Day 4, 28.02.11:
Gollito Estredo (V-01) was fighting his way to the end and finished 2nd! In the final Gollito stuck move after move and it was always going to be a close call! Israelian youngster Yarden Meir (ISR-91) was in top shape too and finished 8th, so far his best result in an PWA event. Newcomers Deivis Paternina Teran (V-04) finished 11th and Max Rowe (K-448) landed in 15th. Well done Team Fanatic!

The fourth day in Vietnam would mark the final day of competition for the freestyle fleet. Having already completed a full double elimination, and a single elimination over the course of the previous three days, the ensuing double elimination would determine the final event standings, and crown the event winner. With conditions slightly lighter than the hammering winds witnessed on day three, most sailors opted to take 5.0m - 5.3m-meter sails to power them through their routines. Head judge, Duncan Coombs also opted to lower the required amount of moves from four, to three on each tack.
The stand out sailor from the outset was Israel’s Yarden Meir (Fanatic / Simmer), who put in a stunning performance to take down France’s Nicolas Akgazciyan (Starboard / Gun). With expectations running high, it was unfortunate to see the pressure get to the Israeli when he came up against Davy Scheffers (Tabou / Gaastra), and failed to deliver anything like his previous heat’s performance.
Advancing to face Jose Estredo (Fanatic / North), Frans would have one last shot at avenging his previous days‘ losses against the Venezuelan before the competition had run its course. On the water it was difficult to separate either rider on the quality of moves, but on the score sheets, a missed move from Frans on port tack had opened the door for Estredo to clinch victory.
So the stage was then set of the fourth and final Estredo versus Thode (Starboard / Gaastra) standoff. Estredo was statistically going to be the stronger man, but the reality of the situation placed a dialed in Thode as very much the odds on favorite.
As the heat ran it course, it was a rare spectacle to witness Estredo being categorically outclassed by Thode. That’s not to say Estredo performed badly, in fact far from it, but Thode was picture perfect. Everything from his air bobs through to his improvised one-handed culo-pirouette, the execution was sublime. When the judges announced their verdict, a humbled Estredo graciously accepted second place overall for the event, handing Thode the unanimous event victory, and early lead in the 2011 PWA Freestyle Rankings.

The 2011 Vietnam PWA Grand Slam Freestyle Results:
1st Kiri Thode (Starboard / Gaastra)
2nd Gollito Estredo (Fanatic / North)
3rd Taty Frans (Starboard / MauiSails / Mystic)
4th Tonky Frans (Tabou / Gaastra)
5th Dieter Van Eyken (Starboard / Severne)

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The 2011 Vietnam PWA Grand Slam- Day 3, 27.02.11:
Day three in Mui Ne saw the freestylers unleashed onto the South China Sea once again, to compete in the second full single elimination of the event. With a thermal wind you can quite literally set your watch by, it was business as usual when the fleet took to the water shortly after one o’clock. As the opening heats ran their course, it became obvious that all the sailors were beginning to get fully dialed into the tricky conditions that prevail in the Mui Ne bay. Cue three hours of the most progressive aerial freestyle professional competition has ever seen.

In the second set of quarter finals, there was an easy ride for Tonky Frans (Tabou / Gaastra), who met little resistance from Yarden Meir (Fanatic / Simmer), an Davy Scheffers (Tabou / Gaastra) came up against a brick wall when we went head to head with the man of the moment, Kiri Thode (Starboard / Gaastra). That meant that the semi final comprised of exactly the same competitors as the first single elimination, but this time round Taty Frans challenged Estredo, and Tonky Frans sparred with Thode.
First up was Taty Frans versus Estredo, in what was perhaps the most memorable heat of the day. Not only did Estredo pull far and away the biggest air chachoo of the event thus far, but Frans defied both gravity and convention to pull the first double forward of the event, and arguably ever in Vietnam. It was a shame to have to see one of the pair eliminated, but on a super close judging decision, Estredo advanced.
When Tonky Frans met Thode, the fire works continued to explode. Highlights include a monster shaka from Thode and a perfect tweaked pushloop from Frans. Again, the call was close, but several crashed moves from Frans allowed Thode and his near impeccable score sheet through to face Estredo, in their third show down of the event. That left yet another Frans on Frans battle for third place.
First to sail was the losers final, which saw a changing of the guard as Tonky Frans raised his game in the howling afternoon winds, and finally defeated his brother with a styled out display of new school freestyle moves. The uncharacteristically inconsistent Taty later admitted that he loathes competing against his brother.
That left the third manifestation of the Thode versus Estredo final to be run in winds that had both sailors fully powered on sub 4.5m sails. With both sailors vying for super technical moves to pad out their score sheets, it was going to be the man who could push the boundaries the furthest that would be rewarded with the victory. On the final horn, it was anyone’s guess who’d won over the judges, but ultimately Thode continued his unbeaten winning steak, to firmly cement himself on the top of the event’s podium.
 
Event Standings After Day 3:
1st Kiri Thode (Starboard / Gaastra)
2nd Gollito Estredo (Fanatic / North)
3rd Taty Frans (Starboard / MauiSails / Mystic)
4th Tonky Frans (Tabou / Gaastra)
5th Steven Van Broeckhoven (F2 / Gaastra)

The 2011 Vietnam PWA Grand Slam- Day 2, 26.02.11:
Gollito finished 2nd in the double elimination on day two in Mui Ne!
After waiting patiently for Mui Ne’s thermal wind to kick in, the double elimination roared into action shortly after one o’clock on day two. Kiri Thode (Starboard / Gaastra) had proven himself the man to beat after securing victory in the previous day’s single elimination, leaving him the task of defending his position when a challenger arrived through the double. In conditions mirroring the single elimination, competition got underway in a steady 25 knot cross onshore breeze, with moderate sized chop over most of the sailing area. First to mount their attack on Thode’s thrown was Israel’s Yarden Meir (Fanatic / Simmer), who looked defiant as he toppled Tilo Eber (JP / NeilPryde) and Russian heavy weight Yegor Popretinskiy (JP / NeilPryde) before finally succumbing to the skills of Canadian Philip Soltysiak (Starboard / Dakine), and settling for a well deserved ninth position in the double elimination.
On the opposite side of the draw, Anthony Ruenes (Tabou / Simmer) bulldozed his way through his opposition with some stunningly executed moves, leaving Arthur Pollet, Max Rowe (Fanatic / North) and Davy Scheffers (Tabou / Gaastra) in his wake before conceding to European Champion, Steven Van Broeckhoven (F2 / Gaastra). Ruenes’ run meant he settled in seventh position, an impressive come back after bowing out in the second round of the single elimination.
With Soltysiak falling at the hands of Dieter Van Der Eyken (Severne / Starboard), there was an all Belgium showdown as Van Der Eyken when on to face compatriot Van Broeckhoven. The super charged heat went down in testing conditions, and despite Van Der Eyken’s spell of form, he could not match the impressive magnitude Van Broeckhoven was exerting in his moves. Van Broeckhoven advanced to take on Tonky Frans (Tabou / Gaastra), meaning the final heats of the double elimination would be a carbon copy of the previous days heats.
The sailing standard he been impressive through out the day, but the Tonky Frans vs Van Broeckhoven stand-off would raise the bar to dizzying new heights. The pair put on a freestyle master-class of culos, ponch 360s and konos in a heat that had the judging panel’s work cut out. Sadly for Van Broeckhoven he couldn’t make amends for his previous day’s loss to Frans, and for the second time he fell to the Bonaire style maestro.
So once again, there was to be a Frans vs Frans showdown. From the beach Tonky was the more polished of the sailors, but Taty (Starboard / MauiSails / Mystic) proved to be the more competition savvy, filling out his score sheet with a mix of both aerial and sliding moves that trumped his sibling’s styled out, but ultimately less calculated efforts.
Taty moved on to try and avenge Estredo (Fanatic / North) for his previous day’s loss. The heat started badly for Frans, who failed to stick a clean move for the first couple of minutes. In the meantime, Estredo was methodically working through his routine, and filling out his score sheet on both tacks. Frans’ nerves soon subsided though, and he stuck some stellar moves, including a super technical double spock on the outside, but it was too little too late, and Estredo once again stole the victory from his grasp
That left a familiar final of Thode, the previous day’s winner, versus Estredo, the reigning World Champion. From the outset, Thode threw down with venom in his moves. Kicking off with a burner, followed by a huge air flaka and then a sickeningly perfect air bob, Estredo had a challenge on his hands to match the Bonaire local. In response, Estredo stuck a no handed air flaka, one handed air funnel 360 and a burner. It was always going to be a close call, and when move of the day and arguably the competition so far went to Thode, for an epic fully planing Kono landed onto the face of a rolling swell, it sealed Estredo’s fait. Despite a super close heat, Thode took the win, and in turn the double elimination victory with a unanimous 5-0 judging decision.

Event standings after day 2:
1st Kiri Thode (Starboard / Gaastra)
2nd Gollito Estredo (Fanatic / North)
3rd Taty Frans (Starboard / MauiSails / Mystic)
4th Tonky Frans (Tabou / Gaastra)
5th Steven Van Broeckhoven (F2 / Gaastra)

The 2011 Vietnam PWA Grand Slam, Day 1, 25.02.11:
Most of the freestyle fleet made the call to get to Vietnam a few days ahead of the competition so they had a chance to get a feel for the conditions, but from the outset of the first single elimination it became obvious that Mui Ne was going to take a bit of getting used to. The location is fairly unique in that the beach shelves at such a steep angle, the shore break actually back washes into the open sea producing a double-up effect for several hundred meters out into the competition area.
On the way out many of the sailors were putting the double-up to good use to launch into pushloops and backloops, but on the way in, when you’d typically expect to see multiple rotation sliding moves, it made it near impossible to find a suitable launch zone. As a result, the majority of the fleet quickly adapted there routines to focus heavily on high magnitude, aerial moves as a preference to the sliding stable of moves.

We’ve seen Estredo vs. Thode finals many times before, but Vietnam’s new and unique set of variables made this one utterly unpredictable. Both sailors were firing on all cylinders en route to the final, perhaps Thode more so than Estredo, but Estredo’s a big game player and thrives on the pressure of finals. When the gloves came off, both sailors threw down in true world-class style. We’d seen combination moves in previous heats, but Thode and Estredo were churning out multiple combinations with machine like precision. In the end, Thode was awarded the victory. Both score sheets looked very similar, but Estredo was defeated by Thode’s consistently greater magnitude, and a sustained period off the plane in a lull, which cost him dearly.

Source: PWA