Jakub Michna and Jana Kašová became the champions of the Czech and Slovak Republic in surfing and also the winners of the first Czech Surfing Tour.
The mecca of European surfing, the French town of Seignosse on the Atlantic coast, hosted the Quiksilver and Roxy Czech & Slovak Surfing Championship for the thirteenth time this week.
Jakub Michna dominated among the men and Jana Kašová was dominant among the women. Jakub Michna has participated in the race several times and thanks to his good wave selection and radical manoeuvres he won his first title of Czech and Slovak champion. Jakub is an athlete in body and soul and after the race he made no secret that he had been preparing for the championship for a long time.
"My secret weapon for the competition was patience and training, I will not hide anything, I trained and I had a personal coach to whom I want to thank. And of course a little bit of luck is part of it,"
Jakub summed up in a nutshell. In the men's final he met Mark Plecitý, David Petr and Timon Matena. The big surprise of the whole race were the rides of only 15 years old Timon Matena, who fought his way to the final and ended up in a close second place. Timon travels with his family all over the world for surfing and snowboarding and is a great hope for both sports. As an added bonus, Timon took home the award for the best wave of the event. David Petr in third place together with Czech surfing legend Marek Plecity in fourth place fought until the end, but it was not enough for the winning Jakub today. The best of the Slovak competitors were Tomáš Remeň and Ralph Zyzak, who dropped out in the quarterfinals and took 7th place.
The Czech and Slovak championship was also the fourth and last stop of the newly established Czech Surfing Tour. Already during the year competitions were held in Lisbon, Portugal, Bali, Indonesia and Matara, Sri Lanka. The Czech Cup only confirmed the dominance of today's finalists and the final results after four races were very similar to the National Championships. Jakub Michna took first place, Timon Matěna finished second and Adam Svoboda was third.
The women's final was on the same day and under the same conditions as the men's final. Jane Kašová managed to beat Anna Amwered in it. Jana defended her title from three years ago. The female surfer living in Portugal has ideal conditions for surfing all year round and is dedicated to it almost every day.
"I'm happy, it was great but quite challenging, I caught the best waves at the very end of the final and they made the difference in the end."
The second Anna Amgwerd is a Czech living for several years here on the French Atlantic coast, so she has read the local conditions very well. Third place went to Anna Rutova, who is the female hope of Czech surfing. Fourth place goes to Klára Kováříková. Unfortunately no girl from Slovakia took part in this year's contest.
The Czech Surfing Tour of course also includes the women's category and Jana Kašová also won the overall victory after four stops. Second place went to Alžběta Haluškova and third place was taken by another finalist today, Anna Rutová.
The children's competition was also held for the fourth time. There were two age categories. Younger up to 10 years and older up to 14 years. Twenty of the youngest surfers from the Czech Republic and Slovakia wanted to match their parents and fought in the Atlantic waves for the title of children's champion. This year both age categories were dominated by girls.
Among children under 10 years old, the first place went to eight-year-old Sofia Hubkova from Prague, who showed beautiful rides and, as she says, surfing is her favourite sport.
Among the older children up to 14 years of age, Eva Černík dominated, the daughter of former snowboarder Martin Černík, who follows in her father's footsteps and surfing and snowboarding are her great passion. Congratulations to all the participating children and their parents who have fallen in love with this wonderful sport.
The accompanying program consisted of team competitions Snowboard Zezula Tag Team contest. Eight six-member teams competed in an hour-long race. The winner was decided by the sum of two waves of each surfer in the team. In the end, the Surfcamp.cz Portugal Crew collected the most points and took the first place in the team competition. The last event was the Europe2 Paddle Battle, a paddle competition dominated by David Petr.
Text: www.surfchamp.cz
Foto: Matúš Rendek
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