On the morning of day three of the Lord of the Wind, winds were light but provided perfect conditions for foil course racing. After three days and 12 races on the course shown to the right, athletes were drained and their legs burnt out. The results were well forecasted throughout the week, with one more day of course racing tomorrow, but with no surprises it was Joey Pasquali who finished 1st followed by Julien Kerneur and Nico Landauer. See the full results here: https://lordofthewindbaja.com/2016-pro-kite-foil/
The winds stayed light but organizers continued the day with the scheduled big air contest. Equipped with the latest in big air measurement technology, athletes attached WOO tracking devices to their boards and took to the water. With their fate in the hands of WOO’s tracking technology, each rider’s recorded height and length of airtime were the deciding factors of the day. After each heat riders returned to the beach and detached the WOO devices from their boards and hand it to the Exotikite judges who imported, recorded and reported data.
The one rule of the big air contest was that no foil boards could be used because WOOs do not register data very well on foil boards. The takeoff is not aggressive enough and they do not offer enough landing pressure to recognize both the takeoff and landing.
Although foil boards were outlawed from competition, foil kites were still allowed. Due to the light conditions, some of the professional athletes rode ram air kites made by other companies but the most controversial tactic of the day was Julien Kerner who tabletopped and then kicked his board even higher to gain extra height points, while most likely losing airtime points.
Today’s big air contest continued as the winds became light and variable, but the women’s heats continued with Cynbad Brown, Justi Vonada, Min Kim and Camille Salvinien charging into the water. The competition was so fierce that girls were hucking themselves onto the beach; Justi Vonada landed on dry sand while according to MC Gorm Gormley, Min got the first air of the heat “going bigger than some of the men in the open class.”
Yesterday’s freestyle results have been posted here: https://lordofthewindbaja.com/2016-pro-freestyle/ but more heats will run tomorrow to determine who will make it into the finals.
The hype continued further down the beach with an evening reggae party at Buena Vista Resort.
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