We have seen some fierce battles this Friday 13th !
Our F-ONE groms came once again to Saint Pierre la Mer for the annual Junior Kiteboarding World Cup.
This year a humid 12-15 knots wind replaced the legendary strong & gusty Tramontana our young riders are usually used to.
New year, new competition rules. As the GKA is introducing the Air Games, a new format mixing Big Air and Freestyle, our groms were the first ones to try out those new rules.
They were judged amongst the following categories, only their 3 best tricks were counting.
x Kiteloops
x Board off
x Jump / Grab
x Handle Pass
Our freestyle riders were not disturbed by these new rules and executed kiteloops, board offs, and clean grabs along with their usual handle passes tricks.
Friday 13th was challenging. The forecast was not promising at all and the organisers knew they had to complete the whole competition that day. The day started with the girls. The wind was unsteady but our 2017 Junior World Champion, Osaia REDING gave all she had and got the 2nd place of the Girls U16.
In the U16 Boys, Oscar PERRINEAU (FR), Hugo METTON (FR), Baptiste DAUVIER (NC), rode extremely well considering the conditions. Oscar was ripping, sending kiteloops and handle passes.
It was a tight final and Oscar is placed 2nd, Hugo 3rd and Baptiste 4th.
It was already around 3pm when they launched the U19, the biggest category in numbers of participants, the weather was threatening, and wind very unstable. Our riders Maxime CHABLOZ, Kimo VERKERK, Manoel SOARES, Théo FERMON were determined to make the most of those light and wet conditions. The organisers waited until the first semi-finals where our 2017 World Champion Maxime CHABLOZ was competiting, it was pouring down and had to cancel the event for the day. Max is on the podium with the 7 others semi-finals qualified as the wind had completely disappeared until the end of the competition.
PHOTO CREDITS – SHARKEYE / RELOAD PROD
FULL RESULTS
