GKA Fuerteventura – Day 3

Monday 22nd July

Report: Matt Pearce / All photos: Svetlana Romantsova 

So yesterday Paula Novotna won the women’s division here at the GKA Freestyle World Cup Fuerteventura 2019 and today Adeuri Corniel won the men’s with the most powerful performance of the entire event!

Here’s how it happened round by round..

Semi-Finals

The action kicked of at 11:35 today with the first semi-finals heat. Adeuri opened with a double heart attack for 8.6 but Maxime bested that with a BIG BS 317 for 8.73 and the duel began.

Corniel then took the lead with a slim 7 for 9.17 points and a big 317 but, as the end of the heat neared, Chabloz was closing in with an even bigger slim 7 for 9.33 points. Corniel was still in the lead though and, while that would have perhaps changed if Maxime had landed his backmobe 7 attempt, it made no odds. Corniel and Chabloz went through with Nico Delmas and Valentin Rodriguez exiting the event.

The second semis heat went blow-by-blow, with the riders leaving nothing to chance. None of them were opting for ‘bankers’ (easy tricks for safe points) and the lead was changing every time one of them touched down.

At the halfway point though, it was Louka Pitot and Gianmaria Coccoluto in the top two positions while former World Champs Carlos Mario and Liam Whaley were down in third and fourth.

Liam and Carlos needed to make their move, but Liam was getting unlucky with his timing and lining up for tricks, edging and releasing to find that he’d missed the gusts and didn’t have enough power to land the trick he was aiming for.

Carlos was having similar difficulty, but when he finally stuck a heart attack five for 9.07 points he was able to move into first. Gianmaria then seized the top spot from him a 319, the first of the event, and then it was he and Carlos who’d go through to the final with Louka Pitot and Liam Whaley’s event ending there.

The Finals

So now it was down to the wire with Gianmaria Coccoluto, Carlos Mario, Adeuri Corniel and Maxime Chabloz through to the final with the wind picking up to 30 knots in the gusts and the event title on the line.

Carlos surged into first place early with a clean front blind mobe but Adeuri still had the momentum after his semi-finals win and he hammered home a MASSIVE double heart attack to move ahead of Mario.

The riders were sizing down to eights at this point as Chabloz took the top spot with a backside 315 and he managed to hold it for all of a couple of minutes before Carlos Mario touched down with a 317.

It looked like Carlos would pull away with the heat from here on (as he often does) but Adeuri had other ideas and a huge 319 earned him 9.49 and knocked Mario off the first place spot. It was so big and powered that, had he not scrubbed the landing a little, it would probably have been a 10.

The final was now Adeuri’s to lose with Carlos down in fourth due to the efforts of Gianmaria and Maxime who were battling for second. Corniel slotted a KGB just to make sure he had a decent points gap at the front of the pack and Maxime Chabloz was now the only person who could potentially take first from him – and he was going to need a 9.29 to do it!

Maxime had one option. He had to do a backmobe 7 (a trick that earned him the only perfect 10 of the event when he landed it on day one) and he went for it and landed it.. but then butt-checked his way out of it.

Would it still be enough? No it wasn’t. The judges only awarded him a 7.6 for it and it wouldn’t do the job. He’d secured second, but Adeuri Corniel from the Dominican Republic had won with a gargantuan combined score of 36.03!

Adeuri is a prodigious talent no doubt, but coming into this event most people might have had their money on Carlos Mario or Maxime Chabloz.

His win here is not only a huge achievement for him, but may also signal a potential changing of the guard at the top of the freestyle game! Check the final standings after that beast of a heat below.

MEN’S FINAL RESULTS

1: Adeuri Corniel (DOM)

2: Maxime Chabloz (CHE)

3: Gianmaria Coccoluto (ITA)

4: Carlos Mario (BRA)