GKA Kite World Cup Dakhla: Day 1 - Freestyle

by Jim Gaunt 4 Oct 2019 23:16 PDT

• Current Discipline: Freestyle
• Judging Criteria: Pure freestyle (4 tricks from 4 different trick families count from 7 attempts. Riders take turns to perform one trick in a minute)
• Format: Dingle elimination. Winners advance to round 3, second and third placed riders go to round 2 for their second chance
• Wind: 25 - 30 knots / riders on 8m kites on average - strong!

There was no hanging around on Friday afternoon in Dakhla after registration and the always regal official opening ceremony in front of the Dakhla Attitude lagoon spot in Morocco. This is one of the most established kite holiday spots in the world and strong conditions got things under way on this first day.

This is the tenth year that Dakhla Attitude have hosted world freestyle competition and it looks set to continue delivering the goods to test the world's best.

This is also the sixth event of seven in this 2019 GKA Kite World Tour season and a vital one to do well at.

Performing peak manoeuvres where small fractions in technique make the difference between the riders isn't made easier on eight metre kites. There's added difficulty in controlling a smaller kite's movement while mid-trick and trying to do double handle-passes. There's less constant pull and support and we saw several riders drop to the water heavily, but that didn't stop the top contenders once again proving their worth in what several riders described as the most challenging pure freestyle conditions of the year, blowing up to 30 knots.

Current Men's Freestyle Rankings:

1 Adeuri Corniel (DR) 6185 points
2 Maxime Chabloz (CH) 6119
3 Carlos Mario (BRA) 6086
4 Valentin Rodriguez (COL) 6086
5 Gianmaria Coccoluto (ITA) 6020
6 Liam Whaley (SPN) 6003

Coming into this event, 2015 World Champion Liam Whaley was up in the very first heat of the day and he laid down a heat score of 29.01 from four counting tricks, which remained the highest round one score... until current tour leader Adeuri Corniel blasted out a 30.43 total in the last heat of the day!

The Dominican is getting the hang of pulling the rug out from under people's feet with the last roll of the dice - having done it to Valentin Rodriguez with his very last move of the event in Mauritius to move ahead in the championship and claim the win. (Winning in such a way used to be known as the 'Carlos Mario Mind-Game' as it happened so frequently, but perhaps it's now the 'Corniel Coup'!)

Here are the round one winners from day one (and their heat scores), who benefit from by-passing round two and have advanced straight to round three:

Liam Whaley (29.01 - Will ride next in R3 heat #13)
Carlos Mario (26.5 - R3 heat #13)
Arthur Guillebert (22.03 - R3 heat #14)
Maxim Chabloz (25.17 - R3 heat #14
Gianmaria Coccoluto (28.51 - R3 heat #15)
Valentin Rodriguez (24.27 - R3 heat #15)
Nicolas Delmas (25.53 - R3 heat #16)
Adeuri Corniel (30.43 - R3 heat #16)

Lots more action to come on Saturday's livestream with the start of the dingle round two where all other riders who didn't win in round one get a second chance. The women should also hit the water.