White Air 2009 Day 3!

WA SUNDAY SUMMARY

The 3rd and final day of the White Air Extreme Sports & Music Festival 2009 opened to brightening skies and light breezes with even more festival goers of all ages coming along to watch and participate in some of the sports and activities on offer. On the last day of this amazing event, being held for the first time this year in Brighton, the Royal Air Force Falcons Parachute Team fell from 10,000ft in their formation parachute display over Brighton landing on the site then walking through to say hello to everyone after.

The first competitors on the water were the Junior windsurfers in a freestyle expression session, showing off an array of tricks despite difficult wind conditions for the sport. Also out, taking full advantage of calm seas, the wakeboarder and jet ski pro's kept themselves busy with a series of stunt demo's right in front of the crowds. Thrill seekers also continued to take advantage of more Thundercat Have a Go! sessions, with the White Air Thundercat Challenge seeing Microlink PC beating World of Powerboating to 1st place followed by Amhed Tea in 3rd.

Further up the beach the phenomenal extreme runners competing in the London to Brighton run started to arrive after lunch with James Tomlinson finishing the 56km course in a just 8 hours and 42 seconds. Other land based sports enjoying huge crowds included the Amateur Mixed Martial Arts demonstrations and competition - a mix of striking and ground fighting martial arts including Thai Boxing and Ju-Jitzu. Winners in the 4 heats were Michael Walden, MMA, Lightweight Division, Patrick Vickers, MMA Clinic, Welter Weight Division, Elliott Greenhill, Team Titon, Middle Weight Division and Scott Reid, ZT Fightschool in the Light Heavy Weight Division.

White Air has always been a fantastic family event with kids of all ages trying out some of the great activities on offer, from skateboarding to surfing and climbing to kayaking. In fact the Royal Air Force had brought their mobile climbing wall, the biggest in the country, giving only the bravest volunteers the chance to scale to the top of this massive 32ft wall, plus everyone had the chance to abseil or zip wire with the Royal Marines Commando's from their tower on the beach ... an opportunity not to be missed! The queues for the Orb also remained busy all day proving that this was still one of the most popular events, although no-one beat Steve Walkers record of 18.82 seconds in the Orb Slalom competition. Even the Rowntrees Randoms kept spectators entertained with live DJ's performing their sets, street and breakdance displays and children's entertainers.

Central to every White Air Festival is the Freesports Park, designed and built once again by Andy Potter and his team. During the day, and over the course of the event, both sponsored and amateur riders wowed the crowds with their freestyle jams in mountain biking, BMX, inline skating, parkour and skateboarding. Age was no barrier with a 12 year old the youngest to jump on his BMX achieving 38ft in the long distance competition whilst the Brighton BMX Company pushed the limits narrowly beating this with a 40ft jump. A new White Air Parkour record was set by Dane Grant at 13ft then narrowly beat by Pete at 14ft. Cycling for the EZO team Danny Pace, AKA superman, pulled off a massive front flip and stunned the audience with a series of inverted rotation tricks. Andrei Burton, sponsored by GIANT also set another White Air record with his 360 spin drop from over 10ft. The Secret Wars Graffiti jam taking place over the weekend was finally won by 'Spit Sega' with 'You See Me' runner up.

Wow! September 2009 has seen an amazing start to White Air's new venue. The 2009 event saw literally hundreds of people trying a new sports through the Have a Go! sessions, the mountain boarders alone saw 276 people come through their gate. The main stage with live music every day was buzzing whilst headliners Biffy Clyro on Friday and The Doves on Saturday brought the house down. Condorde 2 hosting the after party on both nights was jam packed and rocking until the early hours. Thankfully Laura, our amazing Wight Air co-ordinator is now smiling and the team is at the ready and looking forward to seeing everyone at next years event which should be bigger, better and more extreme than ever!

White Air would like to give a huge thank you to it's sponsors, and partners who all help to make this happen, and establish White Air as Europe's biggest extreme sports and music festival!