Stop 3 for the World Series in Oleron France was an amazing event. This was a two-day event and like always we had both a long distance and sprint races. The first day we kicked it off with the distance and it was about 6.5km. Last-minute a storm came through and they had to change it from 30km to 6.5km. It was still a good battle and we all had to work very hard because the conditions were challenging. It was a beach start and the wind was cranking, making it very difficult for us to run down the beach. But we all lined up, crammed at the start and all of a sudden randomly the announcer said go. I was a little caught off guard, but still managed to get a decent start. As we made it out to the first mark it was straight into the wind. We all paddled as hard as we could and I was in first place with Kai, Casper, Leonardo and bunch of other top athletes right behind me. I knew once I got to the outside mark I had to do a perfect buoy turn so I could get away from the pack. When I got to the outside mark I lost my balance, but stayed on the board and made it around the buoy. I got into the bumps and started catching a few, but Kai and I were side-by-side. On the way down there were a bunch of boats driving back-and-forth looking out for other competitors and filming us. This made a lot of side chop and wake for us to try to navigate as well. All of a sudden Kai got a nice bump, which got him a couple board lengths in front of me. I knew it wasn’t over because I could just catch one good swell and catch right back up. And then all of a sudden the boat noticed Kai pulling away and zoomed forward almost hitting me and making me fall into the water. This gave Kai a huge advantage and distance in-between us. After this there was no chance of catching up no matter how hard I tried, but I knew I had to stay in second – so for the Sprint racing I could tie or even take the overall win. I kept my head down and tried my hardest to catch him up but I couldn’t make the distance up between us. So I ended up taking second place for the distance and now I knew what I had to do for the next day. I prepared my gear and got a good dinner in me and went to bed. More; France World Series Event – Recap by Connor Baxter
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