The first-ever international exhibition of landlocked surfers from Central and Eastern Europe took place as a part of the Hungarian surf festival at Costa da Caparica last week. The Czech national team dominated the contest entirely, as our surfers obtained the best scores both in the Women’s and Men’s open.
Men's open
A total number of eight surfers from inland countries took part in two initial heats of the men’s open. In the first heat, our Jakub Michna faced Peiman Lofti (HU), Tomáš Mihálik (SK), and Mihai Ghit (RO). Jakub and Peiman progressed to the finals with a clear point lead. The second heat was, however, quite challenging for our David Petr, as he faced strong opponents - Bogdan Staruial (RO), Lucian Prodan (RO), and Rigler Miklós (HU). In the end, our contestant managed to slip into the finals altogether with Bogdan by a few hundredths of a point difference.
The finals took a quick and radical turn in favor of the Czech team, as our surfers secured their position in the first two places of this international contest. Jakub Michna placed first only 0,1 points ahead of the second David Petr. Hungarian competitor Peiman Lofti finished third and Bogdan Staruiala from Romania completed the final fourth.
Watch the footage from the Men’s open finals here:
Women's open
A total of eight female surfers took part in the women's contest as well, divided into two initial heats of four. The first heat included our Paula Kuta, Katinka Engel (HU), Lilli Manzereiter (AT), and Kasia Kirkland (PL). After an exciting battle, Paula managed to advance to the finals from second place altogether with the Hungarian competitor. In the second heat, our Jana Kašová faced Karolina Marczak (PL), Czika Krisztina (HU), and Silvia Polaková (SK) and smoothly made it to the finals with the Polish competitor.
In the finals, it was clearly our surfers fighting for first place again. After a long but friendly battle, Jana Kašová managed to get a higher score than Paula Kutá. Placing first, she made up for her disappointment from the not-so-successful final of the Caparica Czech Surf Open, which took place only two weeks earlier. Paula Kutá, placing second, was more than satisfied with her result. The Polish surfer Karolina Marczak placed third ahead of the fourth, Hungarian competitor, Katinka Engel.
Watch the footage from the Women’s open finals here:
This contest was a great opportunity for the fresh Czech national surfing team members, Jakub Michna and Paula Kuta, to compete and compare their skills with surfers from other countries. In this first step on the way to El Salvador, they succeeded more than well. However, at the World Surfing Games, we can expect them to face much stronger opponents. It is indeed necessary for them to not get too comfortable and continue their thorough preparation.
This International Showdown was an early bird of the possible future cooperation between the members of the Czech, Hungarian, and Polish surfing communities. We hope this cooperation becomes a fully-fledged championship for surfers from Central and Eastern Europe. Make sure to stay tuned for further information!
