Garat: Report PKRA Brasil

I was in Barra do Cunhau, in the North of Brasil, last week, for the 6th PKRA event 2011.
I came a bit earlier with my mate Tom Hebert to train. The spot there is in a Rivermouth and in low tide the spot is very flat and perfect to practice and learn new tricks.
The week before was host a national event, and we could appreciate the really high level of the Brazilians.

For the 2nd time since a few years, I had to pass trough the trial before entering the main event. Because of my 2 last bad results in Fuerte and Germany. ( 17th...), I was ranked 13th, as only the top 8
is pre qualified.
I knew that it was going to be a tough competition after seeing riding the local rippers.
I managed to qualified myself on my 2nd heat of the trials, winning against Eric Volpe during the first day of competition. I was the "host of the day" of the Extreme Elements movie report from Day 1.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqsZcwPjaoc

On the 2nd day, we started the 2 first round of the single elimination. I passed my first heat against a Brazilian : Fernandez. I had a pretty good one to start the comp, riding on my 10,5 Obsession Pro, perfect in the 15-20 knots...

I was up in the 2nd round against Reno Romeu, an other Brazilian PKRA Rider. I was overmotivated to score this one again. Still riding my 10,5. I had a pretty good start of heat, and was confident, but Then I realized that Reno lost his kite. So I was sure to pass this one again, advancing to the 1/4.
On the 3rd day was the end of the single. I started against Alberto Rondina with a prefect heat landing almost every trick and advanced to the 1/2 final.

I met Alex Pastor in 1/2, but didn't ride as good as the heat before, and he's been riding very good. I went to the loosers final against Marc Jacobs that I lost too, getting a 4th place in the single.
In the double elimination, we could see how good the Brazilian are, and especially Carlos Madson, who is a local Rrd rider from Cumbuco.
 
He won 4 heats in row on the last day, defeating Hebert then Rondina before being against me. I wanted to go full power on this heat, as it's the only solution to win against him. It didn't worked as I
wanted, I crashed a few very powerful tricks. I was almost lit on my 9 and could'nt win against the Brazilian Ripper and lost one place on the final ranking, and finished 5th.

Then he won after again against Jacobs, and finally had still a very close heat against Pastor but in the Advantage of Pastor.
I knew that this event was really important for me and for the final ranking. I was 13th before the Brazil event with 2 17th places on the last events. This result made me climb from the 13th to the 7th place
as we were all with a really small point difference.
I've been really impressed by the level of the Brazilian, especially Madson who landed some kite loop 720 in some heats, which is a really hard and technical trick, and doing all the tricks regular and switch
with no difference!
But there's also Eudazio da Silva and the Teixera Brother's are rippin too, riding Rrd kites.
Thomas Teixera saw me riding with the new Obsession Pro C kite, and after he tried once the 7, he took it nearly every days!