The Freestyle Pro Tour Tow-in World Cup at Boot Düsseldorf was the first-ever indoor tow-in event. The world’s best freestyle windsurfers performed incredible tricks in a towed winch indoor pool. Fans packed the arena, cheering as competitors pushed their limits. Our Starboard rider and reigning Freestyle World Champion, Lennart Neubauer, stole the show once again by claiming an impressive victory in a very tight final. We saw some stylish moves from all the Starboard riders, including Steven van Broeckhoven, Luka Stomp, and our young talent Leander Halm.
Dramatic Final
The finals were very dramatic as Lennart had to score a high score move his last run to secure his first place. He kept his head cool and delivered a perfectly executed double culo.
Lennart about the heated final and the indoor set-up:
“It was an interesting event. At first, the winds didn’t really seem to have enough speed, or we couldn’t really coordinate with the driver to get enough speed to make moves. Therefore, it took quite a few warm-up runs for everyone to get the timing. But then we started, did some training runs, had the qualification and I felt quite good. I landed an air-funnel burner and a double culo, which I was very happy with.
I knew that was my strategy for the final, just land those two moves and be as clean as possible. The whole set-up was nice; there were probably a thousand people around the pool watching. It was very special to show what we can do in front of a crowd that probably has never seen it. There was bit of pressure on the last run, and I felt a little more aggressive in the last double culo attempt. I would say the final was very, very close. The top three or four was quite hard to beat for sure. I’m already looking forward to the next year as it was a very nice experience.
Compared to normal towing, where we do a maximum speed of 80km/h there, we had only 35km/h on a full length of only 60 meters. So, the acceleration was super hard to get and I would say most of us missed one or two runs or fell in during the turn. So I would say that was quite special about the winch. Overall, it was quite a challenging event.”
Photo Credit: Freestyle Pro Tour / Daniel Pankoke