Every second year there is a kite team contest in Podersdorf, Austria. As I was asked to join the Kite Village team I had mixed feelings, but I faced the challenge to be responsible for the success of a whole team and agreed. In the end, it was an honor to represent such a great Kite school!
From this moment on, I put boots on my wakestyle board and trained hard for Big Airs and Airstyle, hooked stuff like onefooter, boardoffs, front and back rotations in many variations and combinations. Luckily we had good wind in Egypt, so the last two weeks I spent around 5 to 6 hours on the water, every day! My favourite combination became strong wind and an 8m kite. With this one I could blast really high – and sometimes fall very deep. But I could stand up every time and so I got better and better, my progress after a few weeks was amazing.
Back in Austria I still had two very windy days prior to the competition. Sometimes it was easy to learn some tricks in perfect conditions, but it was a challenge to land some basic jumps in the choppy water and gusty winds of “Neusiedler See”. We also expected very strong competition. In the other teams names like Hannah Whiteley, Liam Whaley, Nick Jacobsen or Reno Romeu and many more top kiters showed up. But I was optimistic – this is my lake, my homespot! And I could prove it during the training days, in the cold Austrian wind I could fly even higher, it was amazing.
Unfortunately, during the contest we had only one windy day. We had gusty offshore wind, not really strong. We all had kites between 12 and 15m, not the right Big Air conditions… Anyway, we could show some nice jumps, satisfied the judges and completed the contest. Our team made it to the small finals to fight for rank no. 3! This was our last heat, after 6 hours the competition was over and we were excited to receive the results. Yes, we got it! Rank no. 3 and a place on the podium for team Kite Village!!!
