RESULT UPDATE: WOMEN’S KITE-SURF SINGLE ELIMINATION
Earlier today we saw local rider Carla Herrera-Oria finish on top of 11 competitors in the Kite-Surf strapless freestyle discipline.
Result:
1st Carla Herrera-Oria (ESP)
2nd Sabine Beukeleers (BEL)
3rd Barbara Sgardello (ITA)
EARLY MORNING UPDATE:
Words: Jim Gaunt / All Photos: Ydwer van der Heide
Yesterday (Wednesday) morning was the turn of the Kite-Surf riders to register for this double-discipline event here in Tarifa. After we saw 44 Freestyle riders (34 men / 10 women) sign up on Tuesday, a further 41 Kite-Surf competitors (31 men / 10 women) joined on Wednesday, giving an impressive set of heat ladders across the two disciplines, filled with 85 riders hoping to compete for the GKA Kite World Cup Tarifa titles! A new GKA record.
The forecast this week is for Poniente wind, but the forecast is light for the weekdays with lots of promise for a big pick up in thermal wind activity for the weekend afternoons. Tarifa has never let us down, and it’s not going to start now. Valdevaqueros beach delivers a football stadium atmosphere down here when the weekend crowds fill in and kiteboarding action fills the air.
In fact there is already more breeze at 10.30 am this morning, so let’s see what happens this afternoon!
The livestream came to life yesterday to deliver timely updates and some really interesting interviews, including sporting legend and Tarifa event organiser Jaime Herraiz, who spoke to Jo Ciastula and put into perspective the development we’ve seen in the sport, since he – amongst others – paved the way as an early professional who brought competition kiteboarding to new and powerful levels. Still oozing so much passion, his is a really interesting opinion to hear in the video below.
Scroll through the timeline in the video above to find interviews with Jaime, but first the unmistakeable South African Oswald Smith who is fresh from a podium finish at the Red Bull Mega Loop Challenge and near the end head judge Mallory de la Villemarque explains the big vision for the open freestyle format, which has brought big and and technical wakestyle tricks into one exciting discipline.
Click here to watch the stream interview with Mitu Monteiro, Camille Delannoy, Charlotte Carpentier and Tarifa local and tour rookie Fabian Muhmenthaler.
Don’t forget to come back and tune in at 1pm (GMT -1) for today’s live update show too!
As this is a combined World Cup event with two disciplines, there are two live event pages and both have a new live ticker with real time text updates, so keep checking those to get yourself in the picture. Daily event videos and images will also post to these pages.
Freestyle live event page click here
Kite-Surf live event page click here
Don’t forget to subscribe to the GKA Kite World Tour newsletters for all the updates and behind-the-scenes knowledge!
