Then the final was a sick heat against Cohan, my buddy from the Netherlands, and local rider, Adriaan Louw. After the semifinal my heart rate was still sky high and during the final it was hard for me to stay upwind – it is not really easy to ride upwind with short lines and every time I rode out to sea I spotted another sick kicker that I wanted to make the most of to show everyone what I could do! I didn’t pay attention to the other riders in the final and just did the same tricks as in the semifinal. During the prize ceremony I was stoked to hear I got second – I thought I would be third because I had seen Adriaan do freaking sick tricks, but in the end I had a slight better result. Cohan was a little ahead of me, taking the crown.
Local competitions for me are always fun to join. With SpaceX Kitesurfing we organize quite a few events during the year, so I know all the work and effort that the guys from High Five put into organizing this event, and I have to say that I was stoked with the professionalism and positive vibes during the event.
Camdyn: As kiters and humans, we want to see people competing and to celebrate the victor in all the disciplines we love. As short lines has grown in popularity over the last few years, the idea of running a competition has been mentioned more and more in the kite community. Short lines has broken free of its tiny niche which has been a very small, often disconnected group of individuals. With brands like North, any intermediate kiter can now shorten their lines to 12m and huck a few big loops, and because of the gear advancing so much, a lot more is possible now, thus putting short-line Big Air competition in people’s minds.
The BAKL was the first to have a crack at short-line competition, which was a serious undertaking and a brave move. I assisted with trying to wrap our heads around the judging of this discipline. In the end the competition didn’t happen, but when I heard that the High Five crew were planning one, I was happy to share my ideas. I’ve always been ambivalent about competitions in general – I’m a free kiter at heart. But I understand the purpose of competition and love to watch the riders show what they are capable of. As one of the original short-line kiters, I love the extremity of this discipline and was keen to see this carried through into competition.
Strong and consistent wind is needed and the first competition day was disappointing to say the least – “airstyle on short lines” as Vetea Boersma described it. Day two delivered the goods and we saw some incredible riding, especially from the South African riders. I didn’t make it through beyond the quarters after a hard crash at the end of my heat. That was followed straight away by a super-heat with no time to regroup and I just didn’t get it together after that. Everything was brought into perspective by the rescue that happened after that heat and how so many people played their part – from Andrea bringing the victim in, to Jett applying CPR, while Mike and I ran for the medics and carried the stretcher – thankfully, it all worked out in the end.
Although the competition format wasn’t perfect in some respects, the organization and the vibe was incredible and as a world-first short-line comp, the High Five team pulled it off beautifully! Special shout out to James Allan for the excellent commentating alongside Ruben Lenten.
Head Judge, Alex: The short line comp, all in all, was a very cool experience. It was quite difficult in the beginning because there were no other comps like it before and therefore no blueprint for the judging criteria. So it was a little bit tricky to create judging criteria that promotes innovation and helps push this discipline in kiting. The judging, I would say, is more difficult than a traditional Big Air comp like KOTA, just because we emphasize risk and kite angle, so now we are talking small degrees of the kite. I was incredibly surprised with how high the level was – I knew it was going to be high with the big names, but the level was beyond anything I could have expected – double loop late backs and S-loops on short lines was pretty insane to watch. I’m super stoked and can’t wait for next year’s comp and to see where the sport or the discipline within the sport goes.
