For those who donβt know Paulino Pereira, heβs been competing on the GKA Kite World Tour in the Kite-Surf discipline for four full seasons. Whilst competing in 2019 Paulino opened a kite school in Portugal Costa da Caparica, Bela Vista Beach. Since then he has been slowly moving towards a different goal – spending more time managing his school and focusing on the media side of kitesurfing. During the event in Sylt, we caught up with the multi-talented man to ask what pushed him to join the GKA team.
Why did you decide to join the GKA Judging panel?
I was shooting with my sponsors in Cape Verde during the lockdown and Mallory de la Villemarque (Head judge on the tour) and I were having kite sessions together. He told me that my experience could be of great value on the World Tour and that they were currently looking for a new judge. At the time when he asked me to join I was running my kite school in Portugal called Wave4life and I also had my online shop called Kingzspot Watersports but still had some spare time in-between. I had previously competed in both strapless/twin-tip disciplines and had great knowledge of the sport; so I said yes.
Why did you decide to join the GKA Judging panel?
I was shooting with my sponsors in Cape Verde during the lockdown and Mallory de la Villemarque (Head judge on the tour) and I were having kite sessions together. He told me that my experience could be of great value on the World Tour and that they were currently looking for a new judge. At the time when he asked me to join I was running my kite school in Portugal called Wave4life and I also had my online shop called Kingzspot Watersports but still had some spare time in-between. I had previously competed in both strapless/twin-tip disciplines and had great knowledge of the sport; so I said yes.
What value do you think youβll bring to the tour?
The difficulty with judging is that it requires you to fully understand the technicality and hardship of a trick to provide a fair score. Since I have learned the majority of the tricks myself I understand the difficulty of these tricks and can therefore provide a fair score. For example, in wave riding, when starting the wave with an air it can look very impressive but, it is a lot easier than first surfing the wave and then throwing the air in the middle of the surf because you have to have the perfect timing. The rider insights that I have, I believe can benefit the tour and make for more accurate scoring in kite-judging. I have also competed in the twin-tip discipline as well so I can provide a lot of knowledge about this side of the sport too.
What are your plans for the future?
For the future, I plan to continue with my kite school but pay more attention to the younger generation and training them for competition. In particular, I plan to train the junior foil racers for the Olympics. Whilst continuing to do all these activities I will of course still be chasing the wind and swell and pushing my limits in kitesurfing.
What do you aside from kitesurfing?
One of my other favourite hobbies aside from kiting is car drifting! I am a trained aircraft mechanic so I do all the car preparations and mechanics myself. This sport is similar to kiting in the way that it is high adrenaline which I thrive off. I hope to continue working as a judge for the GKA as I have had such a great experience here in Sylt working with a brilliant team of judges!
