When I saw his photos on his posts a while ago I though he must have been some sicko troll ;)
Yeh he does rip! I told him he was the best kiter I've seen (but then I saw that Brazilian guy a few weeks later)...who boyeo beat!
I was up on the sunny coast around new year and saw this guy carving it up and he asked me how I liked my kites. He had the same - Ozone Reos. Anyway the next day he gave me a go of his board and his Dynabar.
I put 2 and 2 together and realised that surfingboye must be the guy that introduced himself as Matt? He had the harness rash from hell!
Sorry but I have to say for me the Brazilian from Axis was way better big strapless airs and massive turns i was shocked whit the result he got third
You got to touch the water, its liquid life, were else does the energy come from!
My understanding from what I heard from the judges was that judging was done on wave riding as it was a wave comp.
I would give my two front teeth to kite like the brazilian, he was spectacular but it was wave comp.
Cheers
Rich
Well I told Leo was not just surfing but trashing the waves im a surfer for more then 20 years and I know what surf really is this guy ripps but I don't see he going vertical on this photos
Hey mate thanks for that but I didn't got many waves in the final was only ten minutes heat not good are you kidding me
Hi guys to put your little hearts to rest myself and Mike Bergman were judging, we have both judged wave comps for many years so reasonably exposed to this kind of thing.
The judging was based on standard WAKSA wave comp criteria the same rules used in all WA wave comps. The same rules we have both used before.
Yes Leo rips big time but Leo also got no waves in the final his third came from an sic air 360 he landed off the lip and back onto the wave. This was the only turn he executed and completed in that heat. Transition airs at the end of a wave on the flats don't score you points.
Surfing boy deserved the win on the day through linking 2-3 turns and variety that's pretty much it,
please come help next time with the judging and you will understand its that moment in time in heat format that your judging not an accumulation of the weeks riding,
I was there watching the final and saw Leo getting one left more towards the end and shirred to pieces how much did he score for that ... and the winner he only did a few cut backs didn't hit the critical session off the wave and no airs I reckon your judgement criteria is wrong mate
Would be better if we had more time not only ten minutes plus what is the rules for catching the waves I couldn't catch many waves because there was always some one in my way . Now I know why Guys like Ian Aldridge never goes in comps
Lucky there were no sheep stations up for grabs. Some one might have been robbed of something that actually meant something.
that's the way fellas. whinge about the results in a laid back comp. maybe you should all go to mambo this year too and complain about how the best riders didn't win.
leo you are starting to sound like a typical brazilian surfer- always hard done by & always someone else's fault
Hey mate I don't care what you think about me and this racist comment takes for yourself I don't know who you are why don't you put your real name
Sorry but I don't consider what you say wile you don't have your real name for me you are not a real person . we have bad and good people in and out off the water all over the world so cut this racist crap off if I were you I would delete this comment
always subjective, whoever wins with the rules of the day, at that time, in those conditions is the winner regardless of how they may have ridden at any other point in their life. It is good to have scoring rules that leave things the least ambiguous they can be i reckon.
Had a few comps around here, tried ISA judges/judging - I don't think this works/worked at all as they got all excited about stuff they had never seen before regarding the kite, rider judged/local popularity contest - ok for fun events but not for nationals etc.. - think the way to go is with top level rider judges - difficult tho as they will be entering! -
as for mixing footstraps and unstrapped as they said they were going to do in ksp - that is going to make things even harder to judge..a bit of a weird idea
where are the rules - would be some good education to read em..
I was there and yeah I did shout Matt a beer or three, helped him tune his lines and sorted him for some accomodation and stuff. Leo was traveling with me and Adrian Roper, do some repping for Ozone and Axis. Hopefully I scored some epic shots of Leo, but no-one can deny Matt rips too and has a totally different laid back style.
Adrian and I believe Leo is one of the top unstrapped kiters in the world, the results in this comp don't matter to any of us. I think there were less than 10 entries from memory, conditions were onshore mush, heats were very short, judging criteria was tough for such condition in my opinion, etc.
But I agree with the decision to put Matt 1st, I think Leo should have been 2nd and the other Reo guy third, with the Rally guy 4th in the final.
After all is said and done I stood there and watched the whole event and took hundreds of photos, but based on the judging criteria Matt actually did what Carl said. Leo did a backroll transition and landed back on a wave then did a another hack, but seems like that was not enough ( he did get blocked by another rider but thats just some of what happens in comps)....
Comps suck, Leo rips, faceless racist generalizations suck even if it is just the usual seabreeze sh1tstirring.
wow this thread has gone off, thanks for putting some pics up Steve. But where are the good ones, lol.
LEO IS A CHAMP!!! LOOK FORWARD TO KITING WITH YOU MORE...
2FT ONSHORE SLOP DOES NO-ONE JUSTICE.
CarlBevo THANKS FOR JUDGING MATE, NOT AN EASY JOB IN THOSE CONDITIONS AND I'M SURE YOU WOULD'VE PREFERRED TO BE KITING.
Thanks can't wait to go kite whit you to send me a msg when you back ... like I sad you did deserve to win you ripps I agree whit the result the only thing I don't agree and make me upset is when guys like stamp put #=!&$@ comments but I guess he doesn't have any thing better to do see you in the water mate