Kiteboarding Secures a Place in the 2024 Olympic Games
Hydrofoil racing will get its own medal alongside 9 other olympic sailing events
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- 2018 Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires, Argentina
- The Battle Over Olympic Sailing Events
- Discussions of Format and Equipment for Kiteboarding in the 2024 Olympics
- Cabarete Olympic Training Grounds
2018 Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires, Argentina
The kiteboarding world has been on pins and needles waiting to hear if and when kiteboarding will make it into the Olympic Games. Especially after boardercross was thrown into the mix as a showcase event at the 2018 Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The Cabarete crew is super stoked on the heels of the qualifier held in China where TWO Dominican riders, Adeuri Corniel and Lorenzo Calcaño, made it to the podium, ultimately securing their place at the big event.
The Battle Over Olympic Sailing Events
Kiteboarding was due to replace windsurfing on the Rio 2016 Olympic program before the WS Council overturned this decision. After a lengthy discussion at the 2018 Mid-Year Meeting of World Sailing in London, the powers that be decided kiteboarding will finally make its Summer Olympic debut as one of the ten sailing events on the program at the Paris games in 2024.
The approved submission M22-18 includes two windsurfing events, a mixed kiteboarding team event, a new mixed one person dinghy event, a mixed double-handed dinghy team event, and five other already confirmed events (2x single-handed dinghy, 2x skiff, mixed multihull). The Olympic kiteboarding races will take place at Marina de Marseille.
Discussions of Format and Equipment for Kiteboarding in the 2024 Olympics
The equipment and format will be officially confirmed in November at the World Sailing Annual General Meeting. The IKA imagines the format should see national teams of men and women collecting points from races or a relay-style race in which male and female riders alternate laps.
World Sailing’s Equipment Committee advised that Olympic kiteboarding should adopt the Formula Kite production model, with four foil kites and one hydrofoil within a four-year registration cycle, in sync with the Olympic Games. The ultimate goal is to have cutting-edge hydrofoil equipment capable of covering a wide wind range from as little as six knots and all the way up to forty knots!
The International Kiteboarding Association (IKA) promises, “We will work closely with World Sailing to ensure that the format reflects the wishes and dreams of the competitive kiteboarders all around the world to showcase hydrofoil kite racing at its best.”
Cabarete Olympic Training Grounds
The Cabarete Kite Academy touts itself as the “main center in the Caribbean for kiteboard racing training, specifically twin tip, foil, and kiteboardercross.” The academy jumped on board to train and gather equipment for the Dominican competitors of the 2018 Youth Olympic Games Qualifier that came to Cabarete in January 2018. They also organized the travel and visas for the winners of the Cabarete event to head to China where they dominated the competition.
With six years to prepare, we imagine a few other training centers will pop up. After all, the year-round wind conditions and warm water of Cabarete are a paradise for constant training. The hopefuls of Kite Beach have already been foil training for at least a year.
Retired Dominican pro freestle rider, Alex Soto, is pretty much killing the foiling game here locally. Although he hasn’t traveled to test his skills on an international level yet, we see him as a force to be reckoned with.
American Kirstyn O’Brien lives on Kite Beach and spends the majority of her time here in the country. She is currently ranked second in the IKA TwinTip:Racing Class world standings and O’Brien has vowed to work diligently on her foil game from here on out. You can see her foiling on kite beach every single second there is at least six knots of wind.
Dominican YOG qualifiers Adeuri and Lorenzo will be well over 18 by the time kiteboarding hits the 2024 Olympics in Paris. So, we expect them to have a leg up on the games. Historically, the Dominican Republic is known for churning out some of the best kiters in the world! So we expect to see our little country highlighted on the map of places to watch for rising Olympic stars.