Patrik Pollak of Slovakia won all four races on Thursday and took an almost unbeatable lead in the overall standings at the Raceboard World Championships in Balatonföldvár. The best Hungarian, Bence Sánta, is in tenth position.
Patrik Pollak is unbeatable. Or at least he seems to be, even though he admits that Thursday’s races brought incredibly intense battles at the Raceboard Worlds in Balatonföldvár. The fight was sometimes decided in his favour only in the last metres.
“The conditions were really hard, we were fighting from the beginning till the end: it was a bit shifty, the wind was sometimes stronger, sometimes not, you could see the difference in speed. You always had to watch and work hard” Patrik Pollak of Slovakia said. “There were 4 tough races, 25 minutes of hard work, it was not that easy as it looked from the results, I was fighting till the last downwind, the last metres. We are still in the middle of the regatta, and although I am happy with the results, I have to keep on focusing.”
Petr Kucera of the Czech Republic, who is currently second in the overall, claimed 3 second and 1
“It was a pretty tough battle with Patrik. He is lighter than me, he is 75kg, and I am 81, and it makes a difference. But we were bumping a lot, so it was good. I tried to keep up with him, but he was several metres ahead of me. To be honest, I prefer the wind of more than 10 knots, but of course, I can surf in this kind of conditions, too.”
British Louis Morris holds his third position in overall, he is the man of consistency, because he has never dropped out of top 4 in the championships here.
“The three races in the morning were pretty tough, shifty. I had bad starts at every race, I always found myself in a bad situation, I had to tackle for getting back to the front. Patrik was far ahead of us, but with Petr we were trading places. I am satisfied with my performance, and I cannot complain about the placings either.”
Bence Sánta, the best Hungarian is in tenth position in the overall, because he missed the third race of Thursday due to some technical issues.
“Both races started well, I was in good positions, then I had a technical problem with my daggerboard, the part, that actually holds it in the board, broke,” Sánta said. “I lost a lot in the first race, but I still finished around tenth position. We tried to fix it on the water between the two races, and although it seemed to work, but then it completely broke down for the last downwind of the second race. Even so I finished seventh, but unfortunately, I had to miss one race.
Sánta had an hour and a half to fix the problem, but it didn’t work out. Fortunately, he got an equipment on loan to start the fourth race with, where he came to the buoy in second place, but then fell and fell back to seventh position.
Matej Stefaniciak of Slovakia continues to lead the U23 field.
In the women’s race, Jana Slívová set a great pace again, and on Thursday she had an overall seventh position at a race, which is a huge feat in a field dominated by men.
“Yesterday was relatively short, today fortunately we had some races again, and I could win all three races in the morning” said Jana Slívova. “At the second race I got some grass, but the other two went well for me.”
Hungarian Luca Gádorfalvi slipped back to fourth place in the women’s race.
“I got very tired” Luca Gádorfalvi admitted. “On the previous days I fell a lot, so today I tried to focus on staying on the board, and I managed it. To be honest, I haven’t got a good relationship with the buoys at this championship, yesterday I was hooked upon the rope, that held the buoys causing a fall, so I tried to round them wide today.”
The championships will resume on Friday, according to the plans, with further four races.
