Freestyle Youth Worlds set for take-off in Spain
by Ian MacKinnon 1 Sep 00:15 PDT
1-5 September, 2025
GKA Youth Kite World Championships © Samuel Cárdenas
The GKA Youth Kite Youth World Championships are set to take-off ready to award coveted crowns in Freestyle Twin-tip and Surfboard to boys and girls in the U14, U16 and U19 divisions.
In a measure of the young athletes desire to land world titles, 53 riders from 16 nations around the world have signed up for the Freestyle Twin-tip division. In the Freestyle Surfboard class, 25 for 10 countries have already joined the fray, with the entry lists still open.
It is the fourth straight year that Tarifa, southern Spain, has hosted a Youth Kite world title race, its westerly Poniente winds and punchy easterly Levantes serving as the perfect backdrop for the battles on the water.
The Boys’ U19 Freestyle Twin-tip category is the most competitive, with 16 young athletes on the list so far. Germany’s Finn Flügel, 16, must be the hot favourite after he won his first Freestyle World Cup on the senior tour at the final stop of the season in Qatar last year.
But France’s Eliott Panet, who took a podium in the Boys’ U19 division last year, cannot be ruled out to push the young German hard in a field that is stacked with Freestyle talent.
In the Boys’ U16 Twin-tip, two of last year podium finishers, Australia’s Ben Gerhardt and France’s Léo Schlichter remain eligible for the category, where they will be joined by Italy’s Pierfrancesco Rizzello.
All four podium finishers in the Boys’ U14 division last year—Australia’s Henry Gerhardt, Spain’s Gonzalo Capela and Carlos Montans and the Netherlands’ Figo van Ekeren—still battle in the age group.
Highly-competitive fight
Eleven girls will compete in the U19 age group. With insufficient numbers to make up U14 and U16 categories all the athletes move up to the U19 class. Among the favourites, Bulgaria’s Aya Kasabova, 14, has already competed in senior GKA Big Air World Cups.
Kasabova has also entered the Freestyle Surfboard competition where all the girls will compete in the U19 division. But here she will be up against Switzerland’s Charlotte Losserand, younger sister of Big Air Surfboard World Champion, Camille Losserand, and podium finisher last year, Vera Vasquez (ESP).
Last year’s Boys’ U16 Surfboard podium finishers, Ben Gerhardt, Pierfrancesco Rizzello and Spain’s Santiago Montero remain in what is bound to be a highly-competitive fight 12 months on.
In the Boys U19 division Javier Lopez (ESP) and Johannes Sarny (AUT) ended on the podium and are back. But Italy’s Leonardo Casati, who has claimed Big Air Twin-tip podium places on the senior tour, moves up to the U19 category and must be a big threat.