IKA News:

Kiteboarding proves to be ready for Rio 2016

The International Sailing Federation today published the report from the ISAF kiteboarding format trials held last month in Santander.

Please find attached the Executive Summary to be considered by the ISAF events Committee and ISAF council.

The report proves that Kiteboarding is ready to be included in any major ISAF event. This might be the ISAF Sailing World Cup, the Sailing World Championships, and the Olympic Games.
The full report can be found here: http://www.sailing.org/38220.php

We hope that ISAF is taking a wise decision – either during the midyear meeting in Strese beginning of May, or during the annual conference in November. A decision, that is for the benefit of Sailing as an Olympic Sport and especially in the interest of the many emerging nations that kiteboarding can bring into the Olympic Games.

Help us to achieve this goal: VOTE KITEBOARDING FOR 2016 !

yesssssssssss! time to it! The fastest sailing thing on water............

oops...... By wind of course......

Interesting, might have to get my kiting history books out to check all the hard work sailing has put into kiting and how it helped/worked hard over the years to develop kiting to become a so called authority /governing body, oh hang on I was actually there - and this never happened - respect to the kitesport pioneers! (My local sailing club actually got kiting banned.)

I really really hope the kiting in the olympics bid fails.

I owe nothing to Sailing and I will never acknowledge that they had any involvement in kitesurfing what so ever. Since day dot (going on 11 years now) three Sailing clubs that I have been to have as you say banned Kitesurfers and now that we have clawed our way up out the primordial soup we getting some recognition, we're welcomed with open arms. F**k em. Fact is world economies have gone to hell in a hand basket and sailing clubs around the world are fighting for survival. Recognizing Kitesurfing into the Family is only a way to keep that last little "elitist" flame going. Let it die.

My 2 cents....

Teams spend approximately $100,000,000 over their four year preparation for the Americas Cup. The total investment for all teams is well over $1Billion dollars. All chasing the richest purse in sport. Prick 'rag baggers' are using their sailing as a tax write-off? So what.

If just a fraction of that kind of money went into kite/board development, holy crap!
Exotic materials, designs, innovation, testing. I think we haven't seen anything, yet...

What is needed is serious prize money...

Most (not all) sail boaters I know are douche bags (and I worked at a sail/power boat marina for 5 years), but if this can help advance the gear, I'm all for it.

And yes. Kiteboarding owes them nothing.

The paper has some interesting data:

Kites sold world wide in 2011: 180000
Kiteboards sold world wide in 2011: 75000 (80% twin tips, 20% directionals – wave and course race
boards)
The market is estimated to grow with 10% per year (based on the numbers from the past 3 years)
Total numbers of kiteboarders world wide are estimated at 1.5 million persons.

It will advance the gear - it will make it more expensive and less accessible than ever. You need minimum $12000 a year for windsurfing RSX gear at top level.

Olympics? -Get on with your own thing - custom formula style super expensive crew - or class racing (ie everyone on cabrinha switchblades and exactly the same boards without exploitation of price to remove accessibility for the young. Waiting 4 or even 8 years (if not enough wind for kite one year - it has happened) to race on equipment that is designed for conditions that are not reality and that are do able but suck in higher winds is just narcisstic.


"For RSX ISAF required something that would sail in 3 knots of wind" (lull) lol

i welcome olympics as it could help the local crowd getting some support

the local market is too small and the financial mess too big for any chance of our best riders having support from private sponsors

if kite turns olympic some of them, once proof good enough, will be entitled to get an allowance from the Government

a sad thing i saw in my usual spot is 1 of the best kids around spending most of their time giving water-start lessons. the guy should be out there in the water, pushing further, but money talks..

Just put up images of one young lady out of Aruba training under Damien LeRoy for the Olympics at:

http://www.kiteforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2375393

It will be interesting to see how things work out. Best of luck!





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