PKRA 2008 - Germany Day 9

Final Day of Fun and Event

The Colgate Kitesurf World Cup 2008 in St. Peter-Ording, Germany, PKRA’s 7th Tour stop is now officially close after nine days of exciting kiteboarding competition held at the largest event site this year. A total of 52 professional kiteboard athletes representing 16 countries competed in this grand slam event including Freestyle, Course Racing and Boardercross. The total prize money for this Tour stop was a whopping € 50,000.00 (US$ 73,800.00.)

Final Day Highlights

The riders meeting was held at 10:00 am, right on schedule. The wind was offshore so race director Olaf Van Tol decided to go for one more racing event to wrap up the competition so the freestylers were released at 12:00 pm and because the conditions were not favourable during the morning.

The race got underway at 12:30 pm which turned out to be quite a nice race to cap the Germany Tour stop. The wind at the start was up to 18 knots then it became really gusty and there were a lot of crashes around the safety boats. A lot of racers were getting towed out of control in the downwind and even in the upwind. It took 28 minutes for each competitor to finish the course.

Once again, Charles Deleau and the whole North team dominated the race with a first place win followed by Sami Gali (ESP, Best) and Sebastian Bubmann (GER, Flysurfer). This meant that after 10 races, Charles Deleau remained on top thus earning the Course Racing World Championship title.

Overall Race Results:

Men:
1st - Charles Deleau (France, North Kiteboarding) – World Champion
2nd - Sky Solbach (United States, North Kiteboarding)
3rd – Sean Farley (Mexico, North Kiteboarding)

Women:
1st – Gina Esteva (Spain, Best)
2nd – Steph Bridge (United Kingdom, North)
3rd – Fabienne D’Ortoli (France, Cabrinha)

After the event, a handful of athletes were seen in the waters doing an expression session to please the public including PKRA President Mauricio Toscano, Naish Kiteboarding boss Robby Naish who was at the beach along with WBO Champion Wladimir Klitschko who joined in to please the crowd.

The Colgate Kitesurf World Cup 2008 was sponsored by Colgate, We Love, TV Today, Gard New Style, Chevrolet, the local government of St. Peter-Ording, Quicksilver, SevenOne Intermedia GmbH, Naish Kiteboarding, Jever, and Kitelife.