The week long competition was held in Tannum sands, Queensland between the 8th & 11th of April 2009 with approximately 60 competitors travelling from all around Australia to compete in the 2009 Coconet freestyle nationals. The competition started with a briefing at the early time of 8 o’clock on the Wednesday morning, after flying in the night before I was pretty tired and had only gotten a few hours sleep.
At the briefing we were introduced to the judges, Torrin Bright, and 2 professional Wake boarders who were brought in to the competition to use their experience on the wakeboard tour to assess the style and height achieved by the competitors. The decision was made to start the day straight away as there was already a solid 20 knots blowing.
The day had started and I had my first Open heat which I won and progressed through to the next round. The day went on with me having over 12 heats some even back to back but I came out on top winning all of my heats and I had finished in top 2 for both juniors and Open men’s, I was so happy I had progressed so far in the opens as I never thought I would have even made it to the finals.
The Next Morning we had finals In juniors I won the heat Beating Keahi Deaboitz from Noosa this put me in First place in Juniors, I then Had my Open men’s final against Ben Winding from South Australia, Ben won the heat which put me in second for open Men’s.
Double eliminations got under way which took up most of the day. It got to 3 o’clock and I had my double Elimination heat for Open Men’s against Keahi we battled it out and he got over the line and took the win. I then had one heat off before my junior heat against Ewan Jaspan from Victoria. I rode well and secured my First place for juniors.
Juniors
1st-Michael Bell
2nd-Ewan Jaspan
3rd-Keahi Deaboitz
Opens
1st-Keahi Deaboitz
2nd-Ben Windings
3rd-Michael Bell
