Read About The Competitions

Germany Kite FA open
Text: Flo Ducate (PKRA), Photo: Roberto Foresti (PKRA)
Only a 2-hour car drive away
from Hamburg airport there’s an
island in the North of Germany
called Fehmarn. The island is
one of the biggest and best
kiteboarding/windsurfing spots
of Germany and every weekend
or weeknight after work (if it’s
windy) you will see plenty of
cars loaded up with gear driving
over the bridge up to the island.
Most riders arrived more or less
at the same time on Sunday and
registration started at 1pm till 7
pm on the 4th of July. The
same evening there was a
dinner for everyone and in the
back ground the final of the
European soccer championship,
not that important to most
people though.
The first day was supposed to
start with the trials, 34 men and
11 girls registered and 18 men
had to go through the trials, with
16 advancing to the main event.
First day was summer in
Germany, sun and blue skies
but no wind, a lot of cruising
around, screwing in fins, setting
up the foot straps and a lot of
fiddling around in the tent with
equipment. The next morning
(Tuesday) was great we finished
the trials and the single
elimination in one day. The
wind was strong at some
moments and very gusty and a
while later there would be no
wind anymore. Very hard to
decide which kite to take, one
moment the riders would be
overpowered on a 12 and in the
next they would be under on a
16m.
Main event
Sky Solbach (USA) probably
was affected the most with
those conditions, he went out on
a 12 m and was under and the
heat got cancelled, 10 minutes
later the heat started again with
Sky being on a 16 m and was
absolutely overpowered, he
certainly took the best crashes
of the week, after that his
shoulder started hurting again
(an injury from Cabarete) and
Sky ended up on the beach for
the rest of the competition.
Andre Phillip (ANT) went from
one heat to another with a lot of
front to blinds to handle pass,
railey to blind to handle pass,
powered Mobes, s-bend to blind
with handle pass and so on, a
whole story of stylish powered
moves that had him winning
from Sebastian Bubmann (GER)
in the first round, Jose Luengo
(ESP) in the second round and
Kevin Langeree (NED) in the
quarter finals. In the semi finals
Andre competed against Gianni
Aragno and lost. Gianni did
very nice moves, railey’s, s-
bends, nice grabs, kiteloops,
front Mobes and more.
Alvaro Onieva (ESP) took the
winning place from Sergio
Perera (ESP) in the first round
but lost in the second round
from Etienne Lhote, Alvaro
broke his foot strap screw
during the heat.
Abel Lago (ESP) won from
Clinton Bolton (GER) in the first
round, both riders did a high
Mobe, board off moves, in the
mean time Jose Luis Ciriaco
(DOM REP) won from Alex
Pages (ESP) with some
impressive kiting, railey with a
kiteloop, Hoochie Glide to
surface handle pass, Alex did
some nice high handle passes
too. Abel and Jose Luis ended
up against each other in the
second round with a very nice
28
heat from both sides, Abel won
over Jose Luis and went on to
the next round and lost from
Ruben Lenten (NED) in the
quarterfinals.
Jaime Herraiz (ESP) started his
day well with a nice heat against
Greg Heydenrych (SA) and
ended up in the second round
against Ruben Lenten, Jaime
lost against Ruben. Ruben on
fire during the whole single
elimination, he won from Morten
Lander (DEN) in the first round,
Jaime Herraiz in the second
round, Abel Lago in the third
round and finally lost in the semi
finals against Aaron Hadlow
(UK), Ruben did a lot of handle
passes, high and powered ones
and a lot of other hooked and
unhooked moves, railey’s, board
off’s, a lot of variation in his
repertoire, the heat between the
2 youngsters was very nice,
Ruben was actually leading the
heat till just before the end
where Aaron did a very nice
kiteloop handle pass and went
up on the judges scoring sheets
again.
Ruben ended up in third place
after winning from Andre Phillip
in the losers final.
Mark Shinn did a very nice first
heat with at the end a pretty
radical kiteloop handle pass, he
didn’t land it but it was probably
too high to have a clean landing.
In his second heat the wind
backed off and he was
underpowered on a 14 m and
lost from Janek Korycki (POL),
Janek had enough power to do
some tricks and a couple of
handle passes made it through
to the next round against Aaron
Hadlow where he lost. Aaron,
on fire as usual, did his normal
heat where he just about landed
everything he goes into, handle