About the World Cup

Bad timing for the blog to blow up! But now it’s fixed. Here comes the World Cup rapport (:

The first day in Indonesia was the testrun day and we all woke up for my favorite thing with staying in Hotels: Breakfast! My board still hadn’t arrived so the other riders hooked me up with clothes and I rode my testrun on Chen Lili’s board which resulted in the worst set of the season, to give you a clue: I crashed in the start. A little nervous I went back to the hotel hoping to see my board there but got the news that no, it was still in London. London! It made it two hours from Stockholm!! They told me it would arrive the airport about 15 mins before I was ment to ride my qualification round the next day, which by all means ment that there was no way it would make it til my ride.

Starting dock and watered that got colored just for the World Cup

The disappointment that hit me in that moment was huge, all the hard training I’d put into this didn’t really matter anymore since the difference of riding someone elses bindings and board would reck it anyways. After feeling sorry for myself for a while I skyped my dad and my brother who both managed to pick me up by making me realize how lucky I was to just being one of the 10 girls in the world who get invited to these events. But it was still really hard to sleep that night.
By morning we all left the hotel fairly early and I was actually looking forwards to getting a ride in and having fun with it. Since I’m the only Double Up rider in the World Cup and no-one has a board that’s even similar to my board I felt no pressure to do well. I was really thankful to European Champ Sian Hurst for telling me I could use her board and lending me a bikini. Time drew closer and I saw that my heat was going to be a hard one with Pro tour winner Amber Wing, Australian and Asian Champ Bec Gange and Chinese shredder Chen Lili. We all headed over to the dock and the wind started picking up. Right before I was going to grab Sians board and start getting ready, I saw my Indonesian friend Uyi Dennis came running with something that looked like…. …MY BOARDBAG!

Sian getting ready

I completely missed the others runs since I was too busy putting my bindings on my board, running to the startingdock and getting my rope ready. With my head pumping with endorfins I felt like I was riding the blue water in a dream once I heard the speaker say it was my turn.
My run in the Q’s wasn’t the best one, I managed about 5 tricks and crashed on a backroll and a toeside backroll but I remember being in the water I didn’t feel too bad anyways since I’d already counted on riding the LCQ’s. I was still happy (And very thankful!!) that I’d gotten my board.

Amber getting interviewed 

The rest of the riders in my heat we’re also taken by the choppy conditions and the only one who seemed to keep her head straight was Chen Lili who won and made it through to finals. After that came Bec Gange who stuck a tootsie and therefore also made finals straight away. I got 3rd wich put me in the LCQ the next day but now I had my board! I didn’t see much of the other heat but Raimi Merritt and Nicola Butler made it straight through to the finals. The guys riding was amazing, the highlight of the day was 19 year old Massi from Italy who managed to win his heat in front of several times World Cup winner Harley Clifford.

Chick world cup riders!

That afternoon Nicola, Sian, Bec and I tried to get some sight seeing done in Palembang but since we were all western girls wearing shorts and t-shirts in a country that is party muslim we felt like we got a little too much attention. The World Cup was also well known around town so we constantly got stopped for signing autographs and taking photos. After a bit of walking we headed back to the hotel and chilled in the hotel bar with the other riders instead. An early night spent with my own shampo and clean clothes was up and I slept like a kid.

Sunday morning was an early one and the LCQ riders were the first ones on sight. Having my boardbag I also got my yoga mat so I spent an hour doing some pre contest yoga and I was so exited for my ride! I was almost not nervouse because I was just so happy to be riding my own gear again and wanted to nail my pass!

Pre Contest Yoga!

I was last up in our heat wich consisted of Miku Asai from Japan, Sian Hurst, Me and local rider Nadya. I was up last so I put my O’neill headphones on like always and spaced out to my favorite beats (right now I love it by Icona Pop is the song!). I couldn’t help but notice that Miku Asai, who was the rider before me, threw a strong stand up pass. When the boat started for my run I was so ready and my pass went pretty well. I got my toe 5 and all my basic inverts in there along with a heel 3. After sticking my toeside backroll I decided to throw my whirly and that’s when things went wrong. I’d noticed on my other tricks that the wakes were really wide and I kept landing on top of the second wake. But when I cut in for my whirly I didn’t think about that but hit the wake and went straight up. For a moment I felt little butterflies of joy hitting my stomach since I thought I was going to make it. That was before I came around and saw how far off the second wake I was. Once I hit the wake my board came to a complete stop but I kept going and I could feel my ankel getting twisted in an awkward position. When I was still under water the pain hit me and it felt like my foot was no longer contected to my body. I came to the surface and I coulnd’t keep the sound of pain in. After getting picked up by the tow boat and managed to get my foot out of my binding I could see it was starting to swell up but the pain wasn’t as bad anymore. The judges we’re all saying I should not continue riding but it was the World Cup!! I had to! So I pushed my foot in my binding again and pulled the straps really tight.

After another crash I got into land and it was when I stepped on the starting dock I knew something was wrong cause even though I had a million happy butterflies swirling around in my stomach since the speaker had just announced that I had won our heat and was in the finals I couldn’t put any weight on my foot. It didn’t hurt but it just didn’t seem to be working like it should and it had blewn up to the size of a grapefruit in just a few minutes. I got picked up by some paramedics and taken to the medical room. It wasn’t until about 10 minutes later the pain hit me. Some of the worst pain I’ve ever experienced it felt like my ankle was going to explode. Amber came in to see me in the medical room and helped me get dressed and it started to draw on me that I might not be able to ride in the finals. After icing my ankle for a bit with hard pressure on my ankle it still kept swelling up more and more and I could no longer move my toes. Amber said what I’d been thinking but not wanting to believe ”You’re not riding the finals on this”.

With blue lights I sat in the ambulance with tears gushing down my cheeks, partly from pain and partly from the dissapointment off missing out on the finals. In the ambulance was also Indonesian rider Muti who had hit her head really hard and now was curled up in a ball with dazy eyes. The first stop was at a hospital where they dropped her off but I was to stay in the ambulance to get to the xray machine. After another 15 minutes I got taken out and shuffled into a hospital that really made me appreciate the standard we have in our swedish ones. After clearing away the debris that fell from the roof they rolled me to the Xray where a grumpy lookng nurse grabbed my ankle so hard tears started rolling down again to get it in the right angle for the xray. And then straight back to the first hospital again, which was even worse looking than the first. After being in there for about 15 minutes I got rolled out to the ambulance Again and got rolled away to a 3rd hospital. Here I got put in a room with Muti who had gotten some fluids for dehydration and was going into a CT scan for her head. Here the doctors informed me, to my first highlight that my ankle wasnt broken but they wanted to run more scans to see what soft tissue damage I’d done.

After being in the hospital for 4 hours without anyone explaining what was going on and just lying in the hospital bed I was happy to see my Indonesian friends coming in explaining that they we’re to take me to the closing ceremony if I felt like it. I was no longer in pain (due to some very happy painkillers) and eager to get out of the hospital. With help of Paul Fong, president of the Asian wakeboard federation I managed to get discharged with a cast and a promise to seek medical help as soon as I got to Australia. Getting wheeled around and laughing my head off with my Indo friends I got back to the hotel and jumped in the shower to was the lake water, tears and sweat out of my hair. Then I got helped to get dressed and shuffled into a car right in time for the closing ceremony with a huge buffeet of food. The other riders took turns in getting me food and beverages and wheeling me around. I still called it an early night since I was emotionally exhausted. Big congrats to Raimi, Amber and Nicola who podiumed on the Womens part and Harley, Tony and Andrew for taking the mens podium.

My Indo crew! So much love!

The next day my travel back down to Oz begun and I was so lucky to be travelling with Paul, Des and some other officials all the way to Singapore. Thank you so much guys, would have been hell without you!
On my last flight down to Melbourne the Quantas crew took good care of me and gave me a whole row to myself. After taking yet another one of my Indo painkillers I passed straight out and woke up in Australia.

So that’s the world cup story for this time. A really eventful contest and I’m really happy it wasn’t something worse with my ankle. I saw the Australian doctors here as well and they still (two weeks after the accident) cant tell for sure what I’ve done due to swelling but at least a second xray told me it’s not broken. I’ve started seeing a physio and the goal is to be back on my board by the end of january.
I’d like to thank all the people looking after me in Indo and my Aussie friends for doing the same. Briony picked me up and drove me to my xrays here in Melbourne, Mitch and the Williams family for letting me stay with them once again until I got sorted down here and of course my Double Up Family for being so understanding and helping me in all the ways they can!

Physio time!

Love you guys and blog is now officially back!