The event was at Calima lake on west side of Colombia, 80 kms from Cali. We were around 60 competitors from Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Peru and Colombia.
We had great racing due to the great wind conditions. Early morning the wind came in the lake strong so for the first race we always had around 10 knots. On the second upwind the wind went already to 15 knots and then started increasing during the day.
We did Formula in the morning and slalom in the afternoon. I won the event in Formula taking 13 victories and a second. The second place was a fight between Brazilian National Champion ’04 Paulo dos Reis and Wilhem Schurman. Paulon had great speed and had great oportunities to win some more races. Fourth was local rider Jean Paul from Colombia and fith was youth Nicolas Schrier who had last year board.
On Slalom, results were different. Wilhem took the lead on the first races while i was trying to figure what to use. As the event went by i got more speed and won 4 heats the last two days. Wilhem took the first place, me second and was local Jean Paul now on third.
The venue was incredible as we had every single day wind for everything, Formula races on 10 to 25 knots and the slalom on 28 to 30 knots…
The last day we had the long distance race, which consisted on going all the way downwind on the lake and come back upwind. I got the first place doing 44 minutes. The race officer sent one group half hour earlier and we finished between 5 minutes all the racers at the end.
There were a lot of young riders from Colombia, Chile and Peru which looks really promising for next years. The level in Southamerica seems to be growing and competitors are coming back. Next year the event will be in Fernando de Noronha island, Brazil.
