IKA General Assembly adopts important changes to equipment

by International Kiteboarding Association on 20 Jan 2017 The General Assembly of the International Kiteboarding Association (IKA) had adopted class rule changes for the TwinTip:Racing Class and the Formula Kite Class at the Annual General Meeting held last Saturday in Brussel, Belgium.

The TwinTip:Racing Class has been selected as equipment for the kiteboarding events at the Youth Olympic Games (YOG) in Buenos Aires 2018. To ensure a level playing field while maintaining the principle of “bring your own equipment”, the class rules now limit the equipment to be used at the YOG and its qualifier events to one registered series production hull and four registered series production “leading edge inflatable” kites. The full class rules will be published by the end of the month.

For a possible inclusion in the 2020 and later Olympic Games as well as for Regional Games (Kiteboarding is included i.e. in the Panamerican Games and the Caribbean and Central American Games already), the Formula Kite Class together with World Sailing will select one hydrofoil model and one kite model at the end of 2017 from the list of registered equipment. This selected equipment will be the only equipment to be used in such events, while all other class events remain open for any registered equipment. This provides MNAs with planning security for the equipment, provides a level playing field for the athletes and avoids an arms race.

A new set of equipment will be chosen under the same criteria (amongs others, that the equipment must be used by a top-10-competitor) every four years which ensures guaranteed equipment evolution and showcasing kiteboarding always on high performance equipment. The changes to the Formula Kite Class rules will also be published as soon as possible.

The 2017 equipment registration scheme will be provided to any interested manufacturer in February. The registration deadline for Formula Kite equipment is May 1st 2017, the registration deadling for TwinTip:Racing equipment is September 1st 2017.

Apart from these important class rule changes, the General Assembly also approved a re-draft of the constitution which introduces an Athletes Commission for both Racing and Expression disciplines with a seat on the General Assembly including submission making and voting rights, and a separation between elected Executive Committee and appointed Class Management.