The Open Pairs Final was quite a battle as the crowd and the judges enjoyed a wide variety of routines. Due to an injury the team of Velasquez/Oberhaus scratched and the top 7 teams performed. Wind conditions varied from team to team as it turned into a battle of survival to see who could deal with the inconsistent winds the best. The Brothers Gauthier showed their unique style of combining speed flow and wind moves while co-oping back and forth to medium paced jazz fusion music.

The team of Kruger/Lopez complimented each other well, these turbo jammers pumped each other big Z’s and fired up the crowd with a variety of against moves and co-ops. Leitner/Marron had some big moments but relied on the inconsistent wind too often and accumulated too many drops.

Silvey/Sanchez complimented each other’s styles very well. They hit smooth, consecutive combinations and used their strong wind games to deal with the choppy wind. Kenny/Yarnell provided the crowd to see yet another style of play as they used Paul’s mastery of the turnover and Dan’s multitude o hein moves to create a fast paced, enjoyable routine.

Imperiale/Rogers played the wind game to a Santana Song that starts fast then slows down – they played to the music effectively as the changing winds favored slower more methodical combinations. During one co-op Joel hit a scarecrow brush directlly to Larry’s Scarecrow brush cross-wind pass back to Joel – amazing!

By the time the last team took the field the defending champions, Coddington/Lewis knwe the title was once again within their grasp. The challenge was would they react well enough to the changing winds to secure the victory. They went for their high energy, high difficulty routine which was choreographed to an intense techno/heavy metal song. They hit a majority of their moves pulled out some incredible stuff but just not enough to overcome Joel & Larry. Congratulations Larry & Joel!
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MIXED PAIRS
I wasn’t able to see all the teams in the Mixed Pairs final but I was very impressed with the winning routine by Paul Kenny and Cindy Kruger – lots of co-ops, double disc work and hi diff pushed them over the top for the victory. Props to Paul Kenny for winning his first Major Title and to Cindy on her first mixed pairs crown.

OPEN CO-OP

This was one of the most polished co-op finals I’ve ever seen and though the wind was causing more drops than usual it was great to see so many different styles of routines going for the title. You had the controlled hein co-ops of Kruger/Lopez/Marron combined with big hi Z indy’s, the all out sponteineous shred by Fried/Hudoklin/Brodeur, the techno-hein heavy metal routine by Coddington/Lewis/Leitner, the groovey-groovey ‘flow and go’ routine of Kenny/Imperiale/Rogers, the 3 disc acrobatic routine from Team Texas, and the dramatic multi-disc multi-style routine by Silvey/Oberhaus/Velasquez performed to the Doors, “The End”.

When all the results were tabulated the pres judges gave a big nod to Silvey/Oberhaus/Velasquez and Team Texas (Dosier/Haynes/Yarnell), and a slightly higher diff score was all Silvey/Oberhaus/Velasquez needed for the title. 3rd place went to Imperiale/Rogers/Kenny who won excecution but played a bit safe to merrit higher diff scores – they were however the only team in the finals with less than 6 drops. Coddington/Lewis/Leitner won the difficulty category but the drops and some mid routine confusion didn’t help. Overall, the co-op final was a great representation of what makes freestyle such a great sport – being able to have so many different styles of play and types of routines compete and play together.

The top women players decided to mix things up a bit this year. In hopes of getting some new players into the sport the decided to team up with new and up and coming players. It was refreshing to see some new faces out there in the Women’s Final. Taking 4th place was Tita Ugalde and Beth Verish, they showed a variety of moves including a nice speed flow sequence. In 3rd Lori Daniels and Renee Pardo played very well under the conditions and showed some nice team work forcing the teams that followed them to play well in order to beat them. Up for the challenge was Cindy Kruger and Sarah Bergman, Cindy is one of the top players and showed it, Sarah continues to improve and achieved her highest finish yet.

Winning the Women’s final was the team of Judy Robbins and Bethany Sanchez with a solid routine that featured some nice co-ops, a few long combinations by Judy and consistent play by Bethany including a crushing Scarecrow towards the end of their routine. Congratulations to Bethany on her first World Title!

Did you know….

Erwin Velasquez became the first player in history to win major titles in 4 decades!

Larry’s major moves him into a tie with Joey Hudoklin for most majors with 16.

Joel and Larry became the 10th & 11th players to win FPA Pairs title more than once…

Deaton/Jim (83, 84, 85, 86)
Skippy (81, 89, 91)
Joey (79, 87, 88)
Tom Leitner (89, 91)
Arthur & Dave (96, 01)
Randy Siley (97, 00)
Dan Yarnell (99, 00)
Larry (90, 02)
Joel (92, 02)

It was the first time since 1996 that Arthur and Dave had not won a major title – a streak of 6 years.