After 10 days in Dakhla with WCKA it was time to move again, this time myself and Janeck Gregowski were flying to Barcelona then driving on to St Pierre La Mer for the GKA Junior World Championships, it was my 4th time to come to this competition venue, the event is held right at the beginning of the season and that can mean it's still pretty cold and the conditions for kiting can be a little unpredictable, with either very light wind or totally nuking, if you are thinking of entering this event you really need to be prepared with every kite size!
Typically this has been a freestyle event, but this year the title was sanctioned by the GKA and the event was run under the new Air Games format, it's a little bit different but I headed to the event feeling confident after 6 weeks in South Africa I was ready to take on a Big Air challenge.
The wind kept us waiting at this event, and I have to admit I was thankful not to be in the youngest age category anymore as they were the first on call, with skippers meetings at 8am in the hope of catching the wind forecast, for the first two days it didn't really happen and only a couple of heats managed to run, with the little wind that appeared being quickly beaten back by the rain.
Day three looked to be the day, again the youngest age group and the girls had a very early start and the wind teased them a little but by around 10am it started to fill in a bit, the sky was still grey and there was the odd rain shower, but there was enough wind to get started, as the water was pretty cold and there was not much hope of sun the judges opted to run right through each age categories heats back to back, once my category got going it was non stop there was just enough time to get back up wind and check the results, make any equipment adjustments and get back on the water.
As we were on the Air Games format I was really hoping to be able to ride on a smaller kite with stronger wind, but it wasn't to be, all riders were on bigger kites, and I took to the water with my 12m Vegas, I managed to clear my first two heats nicely, I was happy with my tricks and making the most of the little wind we had and clearing my way to the final.
In the final I was up against Oscar, we have come head to head in competition a few times before and are always closely matched but in the past he has come out just on top, but this time I was ready to take it on, in the final I laid down plenty of tricks and covered all the categories with everything from a boogie loop to a one footer to a kiteloop 315, but Oscar also landed a similar trick set, so after warming back up we settled in to watch the U19 mens competition and wait for results day on day 5.
Waiting for the results of a competition is hard, it's great knowing that you will be on the first or second spot on the podium but we are all in it to win it, the moment the second place is announced you know, hearing my competitors name in second spot meant that I had taken the top spot, claiming a junior world title for the second time, to say I was stoked is an understatement!
In this event Mika Sol also took home the U15 girls title, and Claudia Leon the U19 girls giving North (now Duotone) my sponsors three Top slots, it was also cool to see Jeremy Burlando taking the U12 boys victory as we know each other from Egypt, unfortunately the U19 mens ran out of wind before they could get through the full heat ladder leaving the top 9 boys sharing 1st place, including my WCKA school mate Janeck.
Just as soon as the competition was over it was back to packing and on another flight to rejoin WCKA in Dahkla for the last few days before heading to Sicily for the last few weeks of the school year.
