Wanted: Female Kite Gold Medalist

If World Sailing is to follow through with its tentative plan to include kiteboarding among the Sailing events in the Paris 2024 Olympics, there will be an urgency around the world to find people that can race kiteboards.

Among the women, the pickings are pretty slim.

Only 14 women attended the 2018 Formula Kite European Championships with only 4 able to complete all the races. The 2018 Formula Kite World Championships had 11 riders and only 3 able to complete all the races.

Not exactly a mandate for Olympic inclusion, but assuming the event is confirmed, it’s now go time for Sailing nations to build participation.

The British Sailing Team has taken on the task by launching a new talent search to identify and develop world class female athletes with the potential to win gold pending final confirmation of Formula Kite’s inclusion at the Paris 2024 Olympics.

Formula Kite is a cutting edge, high-performance hydrofoiling sport that sees riders race round a course at blistering speeds of up to 55 knots. The British team has joined forces with the British Kitesports Association and the English Institute of Sport to establish the #kite4gold programme.

World Sailing decided in May 2018 for there to be a mixed kite event put forward to the International Olympic Committee for inclusion at the Paris 2024 Olympics. The decision is expected to be confirmed by the IOC after ratification at World Sailing’s annual conference later this year.

At the Formula Kite Worlds, Britain had three male riders in the top 10, so the goal of #kite4gold is to develop a strong group of female riders, aged between 15 and 28, who are fiercely competitive and highly motivated to succeed.

With a limited pool of kiters, their search is open to proficient racers in windsurfing, dinghy or multihull classes, as well as experienced riders from other board sports including surfing, snowboarding, skateboarding and wakeboarding.

“While Paris 2024 seems a long time away, six years is a short time to develop world class athletes from scratch in a new event,” said Ian Walker, Director of Racing at the RYA.

“We want to get ahead of our competition so that we can give our athletes the very best chance of success. We cannot afford to delay our talent search until after the final IOC ratification as precious time would be lost.”

For details… click here.

Source: British Sailing Team