Image: Reuters
By Prakhar Sachdeo
CNBC-TV18.com
Published June 22, 2024
Image: Reuters
Everything you need to know about Kitesurfing, the fastest sport at the Paris Olympics. The sport will be making their Olympic debut this year!
Image: Reuters
USA's Daniela Moroz has won six consecutive world championships in the sport that entails riding a surfboard that's harnessed to a parachute-like sail above and perched on a skinny hydrofoil below.
Image: AP
When that foil starts whistling, you know you're going fast, said Moroz, a 23-year-old Californian who is aiming to put the U.S. sailing team on top of the Olympic podium for the first time since 2008.
Image: AP
Kiters clock speeds of up to 80 km/hr, eclipsing even the sprints of track cyclists. That means the typical twin strengths of Olympic sailors — athletic prowess and tactical thinking — get compressed into less than 15 minutes of gut-driven racing in Formula Kite.
IImage: www.sailing.org
“The strategy, it gets madly close to instinct — you don't have one or two seconds to waste in reflecting,” said Lauriane Nolot of France. Nolot is the current world champion, is aiming for Gold at Paris 2024
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“Suddenly you can turn the wheel, that sort of opening of possibilities. It's that freeing, it captures you,” said Maximilian Maeder who is just 17. He is widely expected to lead the men's Formula Kite competition for Singapore's first sailing medal at the Olympics.
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Professional kiters have to wear helmets, goggles, reinforced wetsuits and impact vests. They are trained to angle to avoid “tangles” and accidents that might be just 10 meters ahead of them — or about one second away, said Mirco Babini, the president of the International Kiteboarding Association.
Image: Reuters
The sport is in its infancy. Today, there are about 3.5 million kiters globally, and Paris Olympics will put the top 40 kitesurfers on sports' most visible platform. They will be flying off the Mediterranean Sea in some four races a day, with a target time of 11 minutes for a course of about 10 kilometers.
Image: Reuters
The pioneers of the sport hope this debut will also draw more youth to kitesurfing — just like when windsurfing first appeared at the 1984 Los Angeles Games