Peace at last between Kiteboarders' Associations

by Media Services on 26 May 2009
The International Kiteboarding Association (IKA) and the Professional Kiteboard Riders Association (PKRA) have announced today to enter a cooperation with immediate effect. The first sanctioned PKRA event under this new cooperation will be the PKRA KiteMasters Portimao in Portugal.

As of this writing, a sanctioning and cooperation agreement has been signed by both parties, following up negotiations between PKRA Tour Manager Mauricio Toscano and IKA Executive Secretary Markus Schwendtner.

As a result, the PKRA will be bidding farewell to the International Surfing Association (ISA) which sanctioned previous PKRA events.

'The PKRA would like to extend its sincerest appreciation to the ISA Executive Committee for their utmost sincerity in helping the PKRA these previous months and for sanctioning past events including the recently concluded Leucate Tour stop,' said Toscano. 'We will be forever indebted to their utmost graciousness especially when the PKRA was seeking an International Class to sanction our events,' added Toscano.

Markus Schwendtner said, that 'we are happy that we have overcome our differences and that we have achieved our goal now to unite international competition kiteboarding under one umbrella. This enables us to develop kiteboarding with the help and input from all interested parties'.

The PKRA will be governed now by the International Sailing Federations (ISAF) Racing Rules of Sailing and have their world tour included in the unified IKA world rankings, while the IKA agreed to give more influence to the riders regarding the development of rules and judging guidelines, to further unify and develop the sport of kiteboarding.

'We are really looking forward do drive the sport forward with the help of the national associations as well as the professional tour operators, that have done a great job in developing competition kiteboarding in the past years', Schwendtner concluded.

The International Kiteboarding Association is an International Class Association of the International Sailing Federation (ISAF). It is the world wide governing body of kiteboarding, amongst other responsibilities managing the global administration of the sport and combining world events into one united ranking.

The Professional Kiteboard Riders Association has been in the forefront of professional kiteboarding, organizing world-class, professional kiteboarding events and the PKRA World Tour since 2000. It is a highly-respected kiteboarding organization which aims to promote the advancement of kiteboarding as well as the riders it represents.

The International Kiteboarding Association is officially sanctioned by the International Sailing Federation (ISAF) and is the world wide governing body for kiteboarding. http://www.internationalkiteboarding.org