The freestyle season is in full swing as of this month’s rankings list, and we have a new number one player – Dave Lewis. 2000 – 2002 number one player Lewis has been tied in points with teammate Arthur Coddington for fifteen months, with Coddington taking the number one spot on a tiebreaker – the number of events played.
This month, Coddington loses his points from winning the 2002 Summerfest (with Lewis). Lewis lost the points too, but he had scored well in other events without Coddington since Summerfest. He replaces his lost points with a better tournament result than Coddington, so he now has sole ownership of number one. Again.
Six new tournaments count toward the rankings this month: Vagolino, Colorado States, Minnesota States, World Beach Invitational, Narragansett Beach Jam and the Austrian Championships. Five tournaments from 2002 no longer count toward the rankings: Minnesota States, Manresa Open, Summerfest, Colorado States and Vagolino.
Pipo Lopez holds strong at number 13, but he is laying the same kind of groundwork of strong finishes that Lewis used to take over number one this month. Lopez wins two events this month – the World Beach Invitational and the Narragansett Beach Jam with – to run his streak to three titles in his last three tournaments. Though this month’s wins do not add to his Best Five point total, they will come in handy when some of his older top finishes cycle off the rankings list.
Lopez’s teammates jump up on the list. Toddy Brodeur won the co-op division at Narragansett with Petri Isola and Lopez, then smoked the rest of the field in the Individual division to sweep the event, giving him enough extra points to jump above 1999 and 2000 pairs world champ Dan Yarnell. Isola jumps from 102 to 78. Dave Schiller has not competed often in recent seasons, so virtually any tournament finish will help his point total. By winning the World Beach Invitational with Lopez this month, Schiller adds about 70 points to his Best Five total, moving him from 20 to 17.
Rookie of the Year candidate Fabio Sanna bumps his ranking up 41 notches into the Top 50 by tying for first place at the Austrian Championships. Tommy Gereben, his co-champion, moves up 70 places to number 70. With his rumored pairs partner at Worlds, Gereben could be moving higher after FPAW2004. Juro Turan, Gabor Boross and Ferenc Orosz finished behind Sanna and Gereben in Austria. Turan and Orosz see their rankings improve as well. Turan is up 63 spots to 80, and Orosz is up 97 to 100. Boross enters the list at 112.
There will be one more rankings list before FPAW2004.