Article by Eugene Sam

How does a person start this story.  We have just had our Nationals, and for the 2nd year had BFC as one of the main sponsors.

Official practice was on the Friday and the weather had turned for the worse glass conditions, but extremely cold and freezing weather.  Let me put it to you this way, I would not have let Heinrich train in that type of cold weather, but this was the Nationals and I suppose this is where the boys and the men would be split from each other.

The tournament was held in Bronkhorspruit River.  If you guys can recall, this were Heinrich and Keith broke the world slalom records at the same tournament.

That evening it was decided to have the skiers briefing the next morning at 7h30 and start skiing at 8h00, but when we woke the next day it was even colder, so the 1st skier was on the water at 8h30, as we had to wait for the mist to clear . First on the water was the open men and this is where we new we were going to have a big tussle with Zane, Heinrich and Andre.  We started this division off with slalom and all three put up good 1st round scores with Heinrich leading the way with a 18.7 and the rest of the gang came up with good scores 18.2 18 15.6 and 12.8.

Next up was the junior boys also good scores Pascal leading the way with 15.6 and the rest of the boys posting good scores.

We went through the rest of the skiers including junior girls and boom skiers.  The boom division is something that we started in South Africa with skiers like Zane, Andre and Heinrich.  They all started in this division, and we now have a young junior girl that started in that division and she has now moved up to the long line and will feature well at the worlds in 2009.  It was also good to see so many new boom skiers doing there thing at Nationals
 

Then came the event that we all new would decide the national title.  In the open division tricks, less than a month prior to the Nationals, Andre and Heinrich became the 1st skiers to go over 11000 points in tricks.  So as I coach both these boys, I knew what they could do, and they are so close, the last two tournaments overalls were won by less than 40 and 20 points.

First up was Heinrich, and he set a score of 10300.  Next up was Andre and set the bar at 11100 with some great skiing.  The other guys came with good scores Zane doing 6000 plus Garth 4500 plus . Heinrich had just missed tricks at both ends of his two passes so I knew he could still lift his score .We went through a lot of skiing with 2nd round slalom and all the scores moved up a little Zane 18.0 Heinrich 19.3 and Andre 19.0.  Junior boys set similar scores that matched their first round numbers.

We then moved on to jump and the junior boys set the pace with some good clean jumping.  Then the big guns came up with Garth 1st out the blocks with a PB of 20.5m, followed by Zane also 20.5.  Heinrich went out and had some good jumps and set a PB of 24.0m. Andre was last to jump also going 24.0m.

That was the skiing done for the day. The next morning we were on the water at 8h00.  The weather still had not improved so we started the senior men and junior boys tricks.  After that, the open guys were on the water Garth again set a good score 4500.  Next up was Zane that bumped up his score to 7900.  Great skiing from Zane!  Then came Heinrich and skied one of the best runs I have ever seen him ski and posted a score of 11300.  Andre had to step up the pace and to everyone's surprise missed a back to front step as we all know he is the KING of steps.

Now the race was on for overalls as all that was still left was one round of jump, tricks and slalom.  At this stage Heinrich was leading by a few points.  He knew Andre could still improve on jump and so he went out and pushed hard in slalom, and something very uncommon, he came down in his forwards.  This was the 1st time in 3 years I have seen him not ski out a pass.  The rest of the skiers did not improve on there scores so two events left.  Next up was jump and this was the one Andre had to make for the overall points.  He went out and jumped 24.5m, but by the end of jump, he was still 12.83 points short of Heinrich in the overalls.  The rest of the skiers jumped well again, but still no one improved their distances.

Pressure was now on for the final event tricks.  You could not have written a better script for a movie. Andre had to trick 11500 to win the title assuming Heinrich did not improve on his score . All the open guys went out and skied and sorted the minor places. Garth again went over 4000 and Zane went over 6000.  Then it was Andre.  He had a run planned of 12100.  We all knew something special could happen, but unfortunately he sat down on his 1st toe front and that took the run out of contention.  He still came up with a score of over 7000.  How many footers will kill to say they had a bad run and still tricked 7000 points?  Andre's run took the pressure off of Heinrich since he knew he had won the title at that point.  But he still went out and skied his normal run and set a score of 10850.

I am out of breath just writing this .I don't think anyone will realize how close this was, but at the end of the day these boys are the best of friends and Andre was the 1st one to congratulate Heinrich a great sportsman. If the rest of the world could just follow their example,  world class athletes treating each other with respect, helping and encouraging each other to get to the next level.

To get all the results link to the RSA barefoot site http://www.sawaterski.co.za/Barefoot/index.htm


That evening we had the awards banquet and announced the selection of the teams to represent South Africa at the Worlds.  A lot of fun was had by all. I would like to thank Ina deVilliers for the use of her house and Nadine for all the help with putting the event together.

See you guys a the Worlds in New Zealand.  Get ready, the South Africans are coming to WIN!

PS . We left the next morning on a Safari to the Chobe game park in Botswana watch this space for the photos and the story.