Best of 3 in Silvaplana, the battle of who is the fastest waterman on the planet!
The BEST of 3 Event was held for the first time in Lake Silvaplana last Sunday. Olympic Gold medalists, World champions and Legends in different sports gathered together to fight in three different sports Windsurfing, Kitesurfing and Sailing and in 3 disciplines speed, slalom and course race of which team and who is the fastest on lake Silvaplana.
In the windsurfing Team it was 41 world title holder Björn Dunkerbeck, Karin Jaggi 15times PWA world champion and windsurf speed world record holder together with Patrik Diethelm the fastest shaper in the Windsurf world.
In the kite team it was Steph Bridge 4 time course race world champion, together with Dirk Hanel, course race production master class world champion and German outright speed record holder und former nautical mile world record holder. The kite team was decorated with Tanja Frieden Olympic Gold Medalist snowboarding and Ueli Kestenholz snowboard world champion and X-games winner, who are both passionate kiters!
In the sailing team the strong Moth specialists Mathis Renker , 4 times Alinghi Swiss Tour Match Race winner and 7 time Swiss champion as well as Phillip Käsermann. With the Tornado on the starting line where Tom Rüegge and Jörg Steiner both with sailing experience in the Olympic Games of 2000 in Sydney!
Every Team was also joined by local Heros and Riders in the different sports categories.
Sunday the wind forecast was looking insane and so the BEST of 3 could be launched for the very first time.
First discipline was the Speed! All sailors where charging down the speed sector towards the spectators on the beach and the tower which was equipped with a radar gun measuring the top speeds of all athletes. The speed strip was open for one hour allowing everyone to go as many times as wanted! Soon it was a battle between the windsurfer Patrik Diethelm and Dirk Hanel always topping their fastest speeds. 15 minutes to go Björn entered the speed run and with his first trial he equalized the current top speed of 63 Km/h which Patrik was leading at this time! Dirk saw the new top speeds and with 61 km/h only 2 Km/h behind he was going for all or nothing! Finally Dirk got a really nice and fast run where for one second the water was smooth and flat allowing him to go the incredible top speed of 65 Km/h and then winning this speed discipline in front of the two windsurf speed guys!
In the slalom it was great starts with the windsurfers and the moths charging full speed towards the first marks. It was a battle between the three top windsurfers, such as Björn, Patrick, Sebastian Kördel and the Kiters Dirk Hanel, Daniel Rey, Patrik Koller and Ueli Kestenholz. When approaching the marks it was always a bit critical as the windsurfers where leaning with the sails into the jibes not really allowing fully clear water to the kiters! But that was the interesting part of the game. In between the marks when everyone was going full speed downwind the speed of both sports categories where almost identical! Therefore we saw some very close and great finishes of the slalom; winning in the end was Björn who had also just won his 41 world championship title in slalom the week before! The kiters had a bit of bad luck when Daniel Rey and Dirk collided in the last slalom and Dirk having to jump of his board to not endanger Dani!
Having no throw outs this bad slalom result cost Dirk the chance of winning the BEST of 3 individual awards!
Last discipline of course racing was then launched in winds that where dropping more and more seeing all competitors out there with their biggest sails and kites! This was the show of the moth pilots that where together with light wind specialist Sebastian Kördel , who had also just won the 34 Engadin Surf Marathon, beating everyone! But also Dirk Hanel was showing his course racing skills being in front of Björn and equal with Patrik in this discipline!
At the end of the day everyone had such a great time and we all agreed this has to be repeated in the next year with some more refined rules but for sure the same fun and enthusiastic teams like this year!
Final Results:
Team BEST of 3
- Windsurf Team
- Kitesurf Team
- Sailing Team
Individual BEST of 3
- Sebastian Kördel 7 points
- Patrik Diethelm 10 points
- Björn Dunkerbeck 11 points
- Dirk Hanel 12 points
- Dani Rey 19 points
Tagged as best of 3 + Categorized as News
