Een nieuw wedstrijd format voor de pro-riders, een reeks events door en voor de riders. Deze week startend in Cabarete en we zijn benieuwd of dit het nieuwe wereldtour concept.
The Maitai Freestyle Invitational Cabarete 2016 gets underway!
The World's very best kiteboarders have arrived to the windy shores of Cabarete and are extremely happy to see the return of the World Tour to this amazing location.
The first day of the event saw an important meeting for the riders to discuss the implementation of the new competition format. This is a process that has been worked on hard by the judging team and the board of the KRU, and they are looking forward to getting started immediately with it.
At the end of day one all the riders were invited to LAX Bar and Restaurant for the event registration, dinner and a presentation of the crew and organization. Susi Mai and Bill Tai from Maitai Global gave a great talk about their personal motivation to organize this wonderful event, and Danny Galiart, CEO of the World Kiteboarding League also spoke about the origins of the new Tour.
There are 30 men and 12 women registered for the event, of over 10 different nationalities.
On day two, the winds of Cabarete unfortunately failed to arrive with enough force to get through many of the heats. There were various attempts to get the the trials underway, but the wind did not play ball, and eventually the Race Director called off the heats until tomorrow, after completing only the first heat of the trials. It was local rider Lorenzo Calcaño (DR/Core) who came first in his heat, followed by Russian rider Sergey Sotov (RU/Cabrinha).
Although the wind may not have been ideal today, the atmosphere around the competition site was buzzing, with competitors, spectators and participants from the Maitai Global event all gathering around the beach and pool area to socialize and enjoy the great vibe of this event.
We would again like to thank Susi Mai and the entire Maitai Global team for their support and wonderful organization of this event. We have a strong media team who have been working very hard to set up the live stream which will be starting during the main event. For the trials, you can still follow our live scoring on our website.
Skippers meeting has been called for 10.30 am tomorrow, with an 11 am first possible start.