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Top Windsurfers said to take up Kiteboarding for Rio 2016

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Toby
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Top Windsurfers said to take up Kiteboarding for Rio 2016

Postby Toby » Wed Aug 08, 2012 9:45 am

The 2012 Olympic Windsurfing Competition came to an end yesterday with Dorian van Rijsselberghe and Marina Alabau taking Olympic Gold. But it seems that we will see at least some of the top sailors back on the race courses very soon.

Dutch van Rijsselberghe said right after his victory, that he has no strong feelings on which board he would prefer to use at the Rio Games. Dutch officials confirmed that Van Rijsselberghe will leave for California straight away to take up kiteboarding. (source: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/08/0 ... KB20120807)

Same as for Britains Nick Dempsey, who won silver in the mens RS:X fleet yesterday. After the race Dempsey – who hopes to continue Olympic sailing – said that he already has ordered a few kites. (source: http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/olym ... 15701.html)

Expectations are high that more and more windsurfers will make a switch to kiteboarding now that the Olympic Games are over, and see how well they are doing against the established top kite racers. Only time will tell, but everybody is welcome on the race courses around the world to experience the excitement of kiteboard racing.

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Re: Top Windsurfers said to take up Kiteboarding for Rio 201

Postby chipmunk » Wed Aug 08, 2012 10:34 am

Van Rijsselberghe will leave for California straight away to take up kiteboarding.. :thumb:
Nick Dempsey said that he already has ordered a few kites :thumb: :thumb:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/ISAFoly ... ndsurfing/

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Re: Top Windsurfers said to take up Kiteboarding for Rio 201

Postby ronnie » Wed Aug 08, 2012 10:52 am

The Israeli womens windsurfer Lee-El Korsiz has been kitesurfing for years and was one of the top 3 favourites going into the Olympics and she thinks the windsurfers are likely to medal in 2016.

http://www.sail-world.com/Australia/Lon ... ity/100603

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Re: Top Windsurfers said to take up Kiteboarding for Rio 201

Postby plummet » Wed Aug 08, 2012 10:57 am

it makes sense for those athletes that have pretty much just lost a full time job training for the olympics for windsurfing.

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Re: Top Windsurfers said to take up Kiteboarding for Rio 201

Postby Billy B. » Wed Aug 08, 2012 4:16 pm

ronnie wrote:The Israeli womens windsurfer Lee-El Korsiz has been kitesurfing for years and was one of the top 3 favourites going into the Olympics and she thinks the windsurfers are likely to medal in 2016.

http://www.sail-world.com/Australia/Lon ... ity/100603
Wow, some bold statement that seem to discredit the current crop of leading kite athletes....

She even says sure it may take a few months to learn but then, the top windsurfers will succeed cuz the are good at contest, while kiters are still more freestyle oriented???.

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Re: Top Windsurfers said to take up Kiteboarding for Rio 201

Postby Toby » Wed Aug 08, 2012 4:46 pm

As far as similarities, Korsiz sees some parallels, but recognizes that these are mostly due to the mindset required to race and compete on the Olympic level. 'I am sure that [the RSX sailors] will be good [at kiting] because all of the people here know how to compete, they know how [handle themselves] under pressure, and they know everything about sailing in the Olympics. People who [come to the Games for the] first time—it’s really hard for them to keep going because it is not the same [as] freestyle kiting.'

As far as the transition, Korsiz recognizes that it will take some time for the windsurfers to learn a new art. 'On the competing side it is the same, but I think it will take a few months for everybody to learn how to use the kite, to tack and gybe, and always you can be better at your technique. But in the end, I’m sure the top [sailors] will be from the windsurfing [event].'
interesting.

I am sure you can already bet on it in the UK...we gonna pull the topic back in 4 years!

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Re: Top Windsurfers said to take up Kiteboarding for Rio 201

Postby Al-Kite-A » Wed Aug 08, 2012 5:30 pm

Billy B. wrote:
ronnie wrote:The Israeli womens windsurfer Lee-El Korsiz has been kitesurfing for years and was one of the top 3 favourites going into the Olympics and she thinks the windsurfers are likely to medal in 2016.

http://www.sail-world.com/Australia/Lon ... ity/100603
Wow, some bold statement that seem to discredit the current crop of leading kite athletes....

She even says sure it may take a few months to learn but then, the top windsurfers will succeed cuz the are good at contest, while kiters are still more freestyle oriented???.
Good luck to her. Once she races Erika Heineken I think she will change her mind about how easy it will be to beat the the current kiters.

Also they should look at the resumes of the top kite racers. A lot of them came into kiting from sail boat racing.

Hope they are coming to SF to train! We are always looking for someone to beat Johnny in our local fleet :)

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Re: Top Windsurfers said to take up Kiteboarding for Rio 201

Postby chipmunk » Wed Aug 08, 2012 5:52 pm

yes please Toby :thumb:

ISAFs decision to drop windsurfing in favor of kiteboarding has led to a major upset in the windsurfing community.

Let us be clear - kiteboarding did not chose to be pitched against windsurfing, and it is sad to see that the windsurfing community is blaming the kiteboarding community for not being in the 2016 Olympics .
We believe, that both kiteboarding AND windsurfing should be in the Olympic Games, either by requesting additional medals or by finding other solutions. Removing kiteboarding now is surely not the solution.
Meanwhile, a lot of arguments against the inclusion of kiteboarding have been brought forward by the windsurfing supporters. Most of the arguments are presenting a biased viewpoint, and do not accurately represent the discipline of kiteboard racing, and even make exaggerated claims about Olympic windsurfing - RSX
The latest document presenting all these “facts” has recently been published by the “saveolympicwindsurfing” wordpress blog.
Let us take a brief look at some of these facts, do they stand up under scrutiny and unbiased questioning – are they fact or fiction?

I am a former world cup windsurfer myself and due to injuries sustained in competition I had to stop windsurfing and started kitesurfing
So I see things from both sides of the fence

And it’s good to see true sportsmanship when the top flights are willing to have a go at both sports just because you kite doesn’t mean you stop windsurfing

Would love to see a former RSX rider win gold in Rio :thumb:

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Re: Top Windsurfers said to take up Kiteboarding for Rio 201

Postby ronnie » Wed Aug 08, 2012 9:23 pm

Its all about the conditions in Rio. If it's going to be flat water and about 8 knots of wind, then they dont have to learn to race in anything else. It would be much more difficult to get to a level where thay could beat Johnny in San Francisco or at Sylt on a windy wavy day.

I expect they will only train on the best lightwind gear they can get in about 10 knots of wind as we get closer to 2016.

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Re: Top Windsurfers said to take up Kiteboarding for Rio 201

Postby The Captain » Thu Aug 09, 2012 1:20 am

I have an idea what should have been dropped from the olympics instead of windsurfing...
http://gawker.com/francis-higgins/


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