Gran Canaria will host for the first time in the history of the islands a competition of this modality of kiteboarding that will be Olympic in Paris 2024. The Gran Canaria KiteFoil European Championship will be held at Playa de Las Burras (San Bartolomé de Tirajana) from December 17th to 20th. The competition, organized by the sports club CanaKite Experiences with the collaboration of the Canarian Sailing and Latin Sailing federations, has been made possible thanks to the sponsorship of the Sports and Tourism areas of the Cabildo de Gran Canaria and the collaboration of the San Bartolomé de Tirajana municipal council. This year, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, no world championship of this class has been held, so this will be the only official test of the Kitefoil World Series 2020.
After the postponement of almost all major competitions until 2021, the best kiteboarders in the world are eager to come to Gran Canaria and compete for the European Championship title in the Open Kitefoil class. The competition already has more than 50 participants coming from more than 15 different countries around the world. In this sense, the European Kitefoil Championship in Gran Canaria will be the last event that closes the international calendar of this modality. Therefore, at the end of the event next Sunday 20th of December, the European champions of kitefoil in the male and female categories will be proclaimed in Las Burras Beach.
Gran Canaria, besides being an island that due to the quality and constancy of its winds 365 days a year that allows kiteboarding in all its forms, is also consolidated as a safe destination for sports in times of coronavirus pandemic. That is why the International Kiteboarding Association (IKA) has chosen the island as the official venue for this first European Kitefoil Championship. This fact places the island of Gran Canaria as a preferential place for the practice of kiteboarding, thus promoting the “wave and wind tourism” and reducing, in addition, the tourist seasonality.
The Gran Canaria KiteFoil European Championship will be an event without an audience and will be broadcast via streaming from December 19th and 20th. This ensures compliance with the protocols established to prevent contagion by Covid-19, also ensuring the safety of competitors and the entire organization.
Gran Canaria, safe stage for the only international kitefoil competition
More than 50 competitors are expected at Las Burras Beach, who will have an additional motivation this time since the International Olympic Committee recently confirmed the inclusion of kiteboarding in the Paris 2024 Olympic Program for the first time. In fact, several former world champions like Maxime Nocher (France) and Florian Gruber (Germany), former European champions like Julia Damasiewicz (Poland) and Ellie Aldridge (UK) and sports veterans like Guy Bridge (UK) and Theo de Ramecourt (France) have already signed up.
Confirmed the participation of Gisela Pulido, world champion in kitesurfing
Gisela Pulido, who has already been 10 times world champion in kitesurfing in the freestyle modality and currently occupies the 8th position in the world ranking in the Olympic modality of kitefoil, has confirmed her participation in the Gran Canaria KiteFoil European Championship. The Catalan kitesurfer broke the record in 2007 by becoming the youngest sportswoman nominated for the Laureus World Sports Awards, considered the Oscars of sports. This same year, she also received the Guinness World Records as the youngest world champion in the history of sport.