Spornado Hood Jam Day Four Update: The Dingle
Wed 26th Jul, 2017 @ 6:00 pm
Quality wind and all-out riding marked the fourth day of the Spornado Hood Jam in Hood River, OR. It was a pivotal day, and by the time the sun had set each rider was either qualified for the finals or eliminated from the competition. Find out what happened by reading the following update, provided by the Kite Park League.
Tuesday was a long, beautiful day at the beach for the riders and their die hard fans, with winds gradually increasing until sunset. As the wind filled in the park, the competitors geared up to complete the last feature in the first round: The North Kiteboarding rooftop rail.
Quickly after, the judges tallied up the scores and announced who had won a ticket straight to the final, who was going to the dingle round and who was eliminated. The top six men and four women went straight to the final.
Qualifying straight to the final:
Artem Garashchenko
Christophe Tack
Noe Font
Brandon Scheid
Billy Parker
Ewan Jaspan
Annelous Lammerts
Sensi Graves
Colleen Carroll
Karolina Winkowska
Nine men and five women battled through the dingle for the remaining spots in the final round. Eric Rienstra, Craig Cunningham, Rich Sabo and Katie Potter claimed the top spots in the second round and they will continue to compete in the Spornado Hood Jam finals tomorrow.
Sabo stomped three backside 540s in a row on the Full Sail Session kicker and a melon grab frontside 540 on the Slingshot kicker. Cunningham showcased his experience on the sliders and pulled out some steezy combinations, including a a frontside board slide to frontside 270 over the kink with a backside 180 out on the North Rooftop. Rienstra cruised through the kickers with backside 540s in both directions and landed solid slider hits. Katie Potter rode away cleanly from an indie grab tantrum and also an indie grab backroll. She continued stacking up more points on the slider section with a frontside 360 out of the Cabrinha feature to seal the deal. This consistency is what is necessary to excel in the challenging Hood River conditions.
The forecast calls for more wind in the coming days, so stay tuned for updates from the finals!
Spornado, the title sponsor of the event, is a free, fitness-focused social networking app. If you want to get the latest, behind-the-scenes images and updates from the riders themselves, make sure you download the Spornado App, available via Playstore or Itunes.
