Mikaili Sol goes after another title in Colombia, prize will distribute 40 thousand euros to winners
by Top Mídia 25 Feb 2023 18:50 AEDT
1-5 March 2023
After the first round in Qatar, which opened the GKA Freestyle Kite World Cup 2023 season on January 31st and will host the finals next early December, Colombia is also the country that will grant the highest prize for the winners: 40,000 euros.
On the Caribbean coast of Salinas del Rey, between March 1st and 5th, the six-time world champion in Freestyle, Mikaili Sol, will compete for another title in her kitesurfing career. At only 18 years of age, she already scores 870 points in the 2023 ranking. In this second destination of the competition, eight women and 27 men, 11 of them Brazilians, will focus on performing the best maneuvers in the air, as the freestyle requires.
Favorable wind, calm waters, waves, and warm weather. These will be the conditions hopefully found by riders on the northern coast of Colombia, the location for the Freestyle competitions. Later in Brazil, the district of Taíba, in the Ceará state municipality of São Gonçalo do Amarante, is where Mika won one of the two world titles last year.
Taíba beach will host the competition this year between November 1st and 5th, with a prize to the winners of 25 thousand Euros. Yet to be confirmed, France (August 16th to 20th) and Egypt (between October 4th and 8th) will also host Freestyle competitions for the GKA world tour.
A driven-by-challenges rider, Mikaili Sol has also been training to compete in the Big Air category, already confirmed in France (1st to 30th April) and Spain (26th May to 16th June). In the latter, the prize money will also be 40 thousand Euros. Big Air style amazes the public with notable jumps that can reach 30 meters high.
For Mika, the first two world titles she won were pivotal in her life. "My first conquered championship let me prove to myself that I could, and the second one showed me that I could do it again. They were really special," she celebrates.
She also expresses that she's grateful for all the encouragement she's received, especially from her parents and sponsors (DUOTONE and ION), a support which has brought her the six world titles so far. And there is no lack of supporters for this promising young girl - a promise in kitesurfing - to become a 7-time world champion at the end of the 2023 season. "At the age of 10 I was already competing in the World Junior Championships and became the world champion. At 13, I joined the World Professional Circuit. Since then, I have won every world championship to date," she exclaims.
About her childhood and influences, Mika says that she got her first horse at the age of three and before her fourth birthday she already knew how to ride it. She participated in her first rodeo at the age of eight. Her other passions, from an early age, are riding a bicycle and a motorcycle through the dunes of the beaches in Ceará. In other words, adventure and adrenaline are in her blood.
Her passion for kitesurfing came from inside her home, for her parents practiced kitesurf, but only allowed her to start training when she was eight. With this rhythm and many trips, mainly international, she was home-schooled until 2017 and then started attending the World Class Kiteboarding Academy (a group of students and teachers from different countries with the same passion for the sea and sports).
With an increasingly extensive travel schedule because of competitions outside Brazil, in 2019 Mikaili Sol decided to finish high school online. "My parents have always stated that education is fundamental and that you have to finish what you started. With this foundation, I found the balance between competition, rigorous training and the luck to travel the world and meet coaches, athletes and great people who add a lot into my life," highlights the young athlete.
Even having the opportunity to get to know countless countries, she expresses the desire to always return to her safe harbor, Taíba, which has been attracting, more and more, kitesurfers from all over the world because of the excellent wind conditions for the sport.
Today, Mika is finishing her training in Hawaii, USA, and she's arriving at Colombia on February 25 to begin beach recognition and local preparation.