PKRA World Tour debuts in France

It’s registration day for the second stop of the PKRA 2008 Kiteboarding World Tour in this beautiful city of Leucate, situated at the southwestern coast of France. The weather was very cold with the temperature dropping to 9° Celsius particularly during the early morning hours. There were periods of light rain but the most prominent about the weather in this side of France is the wind, blowing between 19 and
21 knots (5 bft) during most part of the day but was a bit stronger in the morning.

There was a photo shoot session in the afternoon participated in by some of the competitors. Five riders braved the conditions and went into the waters with the most notable being last year’s world tour runner-up Kevin Langeree who was on his 6m Naish kite. Local French racer Sebastien “Catman” Catellan also went out on his 7m kite. Both riders gave the media a glimpse of the intensity of tomorrow’s competition and beyond by boosting huge air tricks using the power of the wind.

The registration proper started at approximately 5:00 pm and lasted for a few hours because of the record turn out of competitors. A total of 54 world-class, professional kiteboarders representing 19 nationalities registered for the Freestyle competition while a total of 35 young athletes from 12 different countries will be competing in the Course Racing event.

This leg of the 2008 PKRA Kiteboarding World Tour is joined by the oldest ongoing kiteboarding event in the world, Mondial du Vent which is also the most prestigious kiteboarding and windsurfing games in Europe. This is the very first time that the PKRA will be holding its competition in France and the addition of Mondial du Vent to the roster of tour partner events proves the PKRA’s authority as the leading kiteboarding event in the world. The organizers expect to have a crowd of more than one hundred sixty thousand people viewing the contest live so a full week of activities, shows, exhibitions, and exhilarating kiteboarding and windsurfing action were put in order.

Tomorrow’s competition debut will have trials for both men and women in the Freestyle competition, after the mandatory skippers meeting which is scheduled to start nice and early at 8:00 am. Wind permitting, the plan would be to try and run all trials and complete the single eliminations plus two course racing events at the close of the day. So it’s a huge day tomorrow as the competitors get ready to clash it out one more time for a piece of the €45,000 purse plus the title of being crowned as the first ever PKRA France champion.

The Mondial du Vent 2008 and the PKRA 2008 France is made possible thru the efforts and kindness of the Office de Tourisme de Leucate with VW Utilitaires and Portail Orange as official partners. Foster's Beer, Veolia Eau, Cool Shoe Corporation and Julbo sunglasses are official sponsors. ExtremeElements.tv being the official media partner of the PKRA will provide HD-quality video footages of the event. To view the event’s live results, simply login and register at http://www.extremeelements.tv as well as commentaries and press releases of the previous PKRA World Tours.