First Stop KTA 2012- Boracay: 1st Place in Courserace

KTA - First stop Boracay
This years KTA started only in January and the first event for the season was on my homespot Boracay powered by Aqua Boracay, who signed a sponsorcontract for this event for 5 years to come. It was the first event for me with my new sponsor and the Cabrinha Kites. Topping last years event with 68 riders, yet again a record with 79 riders registering!

A very unpredictable forecast made it difficult for me to register 3 kites only for the courserace, as the wind showed superstrong for the first 2 days and then no more for the weekend. Even though registering small kites only, I extended my lines on the no wind days and won all races apart from one, where Aya Oshima from Japan used the chance of her bigger registered kites. I was very happy about my new gear, which I felt comfortable with from the beginning.

The first day we got a very exciting show on the water with a high level of freestyle with 38 competitors going for their best moves and showing young riders below 20 years coming. Day two and three were good mixes of racing and double elimination as low tide in Boracay is not raceboard-friendly (fins are too long) and races could happen only in the afternoons.

Freestyle Double Eliminations were sounded off at 10:30AM and went all the way to the finals at 2PM, with champions Victoria Soloveykina (Russia) winning in the women’s category and Andrey Salnik (Ukraine) winning in the men’s category, after two heats of the finals, defeating his top contender Ben Bowd (UK) with his powered kite loop tricks as well as mobe and slim 5.
62 riders with both classes the twintip and the raceboard class made a very colorful skyline. By introducing the twintip raceclass KTA makes competition accessible for almost everyone. By encouraging riders of different levels to join for the fun of it, the organizers really hit one of the key points of events: promoting a love for the sport. Last Day: With winds dropping to 12 knots, two successful races of TT had adrenalines pumping, with kiteboarders racing not only against each other, but challenging the wind to pick up and sustain the unabated race momentum. When the wind dropped, one good RB race ensued until the wind decided to call it a day for everyone.

The evening’s celebrations were sponsored by CABRINHA at THE SAND BAR BORACAY. The festive gala awards were set at the beachfront, with a chic beach lounge of low tables and leather sofas, for a relaxed kitesurferstyle ambience, under a huge canopy. The after party followed at JUNGLE BAR, with Moscow’s legendary DJ Spy.der and Boracay DJ Erwin Edralin on the decks until sunrise, it was the perfect ending to cap an incredible first leg of this year’s KTA, and KTA Philippines totally rocked Boracay Island, once again!