Last sunday the RedBull event King of the Air was held at Big Bay in Cape Town, South Africa. The world’s top 24 kitesurfers compete each other in 20 minutes heats. It’s about going huge. The judging criterias are: 70% height and extremity, 20% style and execution and 10% variety of the jumps. To measure the height of the jumps every rider wore a gps tracker at his shoulder.
My favorites for the competition were
Andries Fourie (RSA)
This local guy likes to going big. His highest jump was 23 meters! In my opinion he deserved 3rd place, but he got 4th.
Kevin Langaree (NL)
Definitely the most consistent performance during the event.
Tom Herbert (NC)
He entertained the audience by doing freestyle tricks next to the beach. On the photo above you see him doing a Jesus walk.
Tom Herbert had the highest jump with 25.04 meters until he lost control and had a hard crash. He felt dizzy and was taken to the hospital, but luckily he wasn’t injured.
Award ceremony
1st Kevin Langaree (NL), 2nd Ruben Lenten (NL) and 3rd Steven Akkersdijk (NL)
This is one of the best kitesurf-events. It’s entertaining both for kitersurfers and the non-kitesurf audience. The event takes around 6.5 hours with two times 10 minutes breaks. So you got several hours of joy and fun.
The organisers picked the perfect day for the competition. The ‘Cape Doctor’ (local strong wind from south-east) kicked in and the swell was good. The competitors brought a kitesurf-highlight to the crowd of 12’000. Over 250’000 followed the event on the internet via the live-stream which RedBull sponsored.
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