A little while ago, Antoine Auriol – the kitesurfing World champion KPWT 2010 – realized one of his dreams: to kitesurf in the center of Madrid, in the famous Retiro park. For the past four years, Antoine has been presenting documentaries about the environment for French TV. During his trips, he has already kitesurfed in the center of Manhattan (New York), in front of the Eiffel Tower (Paris), and in a lot of other original places.
“A few days ago I received an email from Windy – an app that allows me to forecast the wind anywhere in the world – telling me that it was going to be windy in Madrid. The really good thing with this app is that you can personalize it, and program it so that they can send you a notification whenever they forecast the type of weather that you want. We had been waiting for this moment with Alexandre for more than eight months. There is barely any wind in the Spanish capital. So we jumped on a train with my kite and my board! I knew it was going to be complicated because in this sort of park with many trees around the wind would be gusty. I was lucky to meet a couple of kitesurfers that were walking there who helped me to launch my kite on a strong gust of wind. Then I jumped in the water and flew with the ducks for a while! Madrid was a special project for me because I have been living in Spain for many years and I love this country, its society and especially the people. I read that this artificial lake was a place that was used in historical times to reproduce big naval battles for the entertainment of kings. Today the Retiro park is considered as the lungs of Madrid, where the people come to walk, jog and breath fresh air. For me, it was so good to be able to kite in that mythical place. I’ll never forget the moment!” –Antoine Auriol