Report from the world championships...
Went down to the worlds on Friday night and thought I'd fill you in about what I saw/learned.
Unfortunately, we showed up at 4pm (when the pros were scheduled to start) and found out that the regular boat had hit a buoy cable and wrecked the prop. We were watching some of the centurion guys try to get the boat on the trailer straight (not sure why this was so difficult...) but it was a 2010 boat that had never been in the water before, so they took their time to do it right.
That meant that we spent the next 3 hours watching the amateur classes and the pro goofy women riders. I think we only caught 2 pro mens skim riders as they were the only goofy ones in either the surf or skim groups. It was really frustrating to watch because the announcer wasn't doing a very good job of keeping the crowd informed about what riders were in what class and they were somewhat mixed together because they were only running a goofy boat for a large chunk of that time. Unless I missed something it seemed like all of the pro mens surfers were regular footed and the light ran out for both mens and womens pro classes to run. Dang!
The amateur classes were somewhat boring because it wasn't anything above and beyond what I see my crew do every week. I saw the women attempt 360s (I didn't see one stuck...) and I saw the mens amateurs do pretty much the same thing (there may have been a couple of 360s ridden out.)
I was lucky enough to see Keegan Flegels pro skim run and I'm still in complete disbelief. His run was so tight front to back and I'm pretty sure he threw down every single trick that has ever been stuck on a skim board and then some. His combos were incredible and I left for the night assuming he had the whole class sewn up. It wasn't too big of a surprise that I read this morning that he won the overall mens title. Well deserved and I have to wonder what the dude is going to be up to in the future since he is only 14.
The other standout was Bri Chmel. Her run looked to be the best pro womens run that I saw and she is also extremely easy on the eyes.
It was a bummer that we didn't get to make it down there on Saturday (we chose the Red Bull Flugtag, instead) but I'm glad we made it out on Friday night. The report I got was that the regular boat hit a log on Saturday and caused further delays. It sounds like Saturday was more waiting around for boat problems and for the classes to get sorted out. I watched how it was all organized and have to say I think that everyone did a great job... but.... bad luck on both days with the boats caused it to be a really tough event for the spectators. I can't imagine that they'll be back in minneapolis for the championships anytime soon, but hopefully it will come to the midwest again and I'll have a chance to see Jeff Walker and Chase Hazen ride in person.
