2016 IKA Kiteboarding World Championships Pingtan - Day 4

by International Kiteboarding Association on 25 Sep 2016 2016 IKA Kiteboarding World Championships – Day four, groundhog day! Twenty knot winds again prevailed across the entire course area with a small 2-3ft chop adding an extra element of excitement to otherwise smooth racing conditions. Race officials had a challenging long day on the water with the strong winds and short chop whipping spray up onto the deck of the start boat and making it difficult to keep the race results dry.

A five rider tangle ensued second race of the day (yellow heat four), a dangerous situation that the well trained safety crew did amazing job of cleaning up, luckily no one was injured and all the racers continued to compete in the following races.

10 year old Huang Qi Bin had a great first day of racing, missing the previous day his overall standing isn’t the best at 36th, but otherwise he came in a surprising 11th,13th and a 10th places respectively. It’s great to see new youth entering the sport, especially with such a talent for racing. We hope Bin continues to progress through the gold class tomorrow, which he just scraped into!

In the Womens division Magaji had an amazing first race of the day (race four) as she finally managed to push ahead of local Chinese rider Jingle. Magajis excitement wasn’t to last long however as Jingle won the next two races and ended up two points ahead of Magaji in the seven race total (with one discard). It will be interesting to see if Magaji can push hard enough to give Jingle some more competition again tomorrow for the final races.

Yo and Kerneur were once again on the top of their game with first place finishes in every single race they entered. After seven races both competitors now have one dropped result and as such both Yo and Kerneur sit tied on a 6 point total. If Yo and Kerneur manage to end up tied again after tomorrows gold fleet (where they will race head to head) a count-back will occur, in such a scenario Yo would take the win, there’s no doubt Kerneur will fight hard to make sure this doesn’t happen. Tomorrow will tell whether or not it will come down to the wire, but we’re sure it wont come easy for either of them!

The top ten racers are still in very close quarters overall and it could well be anyone’s day, all the athletes will need to be on the top of their game tomorrow to make sure they don’t make any fatal mistakes, this should indeed keep things interesting and make the racing tighter than ever! We wish all the racers the best of luck tomorrow.

With a great forecast for tomorrow we’re expecting another prompt start after the 10o’clock skippers meeting. Stay tuned for all the results tomorrow!

Watch the video from Day 4


Watch the video from Day 3