Title race wide open at season mid-point in the GKA Kite-Surf World Championship

GKA Kite-Surf World Cup Dakhla © Lukas K Stiller

GKA Kite-Surf World Cup Dakhla © Lukas K Stiller

GKA Kite-Surf World Cup Dakhla © Lukas K Stiller

Third stop of Kite-Surf tour returns to Dakhla as margins between the leaders shrink after shuffling of pack.

The race for the Qatar Airways GKA Kite-Surf World Championship title is set to hot up when the tour returns to Morocco for a mid-season showdown in Dakhla's long right-hand point-break.

Margins between the leaders at the top of the standings shrank after the tour's second call in Sylt, Germany, where the pack was shuffled. That will put added pressure to perform at the GKA Kite-Surf World Cup in Dakhla for those who want to keep their title hopes alive.

Current men's world champion, Cape Verdean Airton Cozzolino (ITA), remains top of the rankings by a few points, just ahead of Benetton. But Cozzolino's surprising quarter-final exit in Germany left him with a fifth-place finish and cut his advantage at the top.

The young Brazilian Gabriel Benetton's second in Sylt moved him up the rankings to second. But he was defeated in the final by a resurgent James Carew (AUS) who returned from an 18-month injury layoff, fired up and hungry for a third world title. Carew missed the first stop in Cape Verde and sits fifth in the standings.

Surprise defeat

Brazil's Pedro Matos, the winner last year in Dakhla, had another disappointing out in Sylt, where he finished ninth after a surprise defeat at the hands of Lorenzo Casati (ESP) in the mixed format of wave surfing and strapless-freestyle. Matos is ranked third overall.

Another Cape Verdean, Matchu Lopes (ESP), winner of two tour stops last year, has had a rocky start to the season. With back-to-back fifth-place finishes, he now sits fourth in the standings overall.

Sebastian Ribeiro (BRA) chose to sit out the Sylt stop, taking it as a discard. Ribeiro favours pure surfing wave competitions and will be hoping Dakhla and the two remaining stops in Brazil will be fought out in that format.

Twenty-four men and 14 women, from 14 countries around the world are due to battle at Oum Lamboiur, a long right-hander that jacks up on the point at the Westpoint Dakhla hotel and curls round into the sandy bay.

Tops the rankings

France's Capucine Delannoy will be seeking to build her title momentum in the hope she can regain the crown she lost last year to the US's Moona Whyte, who had returned to the tour after a four-year break.

Whyte won the opening stop in Cape Verde in February, but missed Sylt and has said she planned to step back for the rest of this year. Delannoy, still just 17, won in Germany and tops the rankings.

Each of the top three women moved up a place in the rankings, with Switzerland's Camille Losserand second overall, and Brazil's Kesiane Rodrigues in third.

Join us for all the action to find who can advance their title hopes here.

GKA Kite-Surf World Cup Dakhla - photo © Lukas K Stiller