Max Maeder cruised to yet another championship title while for Jessie Kampman it was a real battle to earn her maiden victory at a KiteFoil World Series event. After two days of good breeze which produced 12 massed-start fleet races, medal series day on Lake Traunsee delivered a nailbiting finale of four-rider competition at KiteFoil World Series Austria.
The medal series sees the top 10 battle their way through to the last four, although today there was a twist, an innovation known as the ‘Golden Ticket’ race. All the male riders outside the top nine competed in a single race to determine who would grab the 10th spot in the medal series. Poland’s young rider Jan Koszowski was fast out of the start and never put a foot wrong, grabbing the Golden Ticket with glee.
Jan’s Golden Ticket
Although Koszowski was unable to progress beyond the next stage, the repechage, the ‘Golden Ticket’ was well received by the fleet as a ‘last chance saloon’ option for anyone still to be able to win on the final day of the regatta.
Benoit Gomez of France and Florian Gruber of Germany battled their way out of the semi-final to claim their place alongside Maeder and Martin Dolenc of Croatia. But much like the rest of the week, no one could hold back the 17-year-old from Singapore who moved into the lead by the first mark and was never challenged.
Maeder back on form
After winning a bronze medal at the Olympics a month ago, Maeder is back in invincible mode, although he never takes anything for granted. He was pleased to back on the water after his longest break from kitefoiling for the past many years. “I took 25 days out between the Games and now, so I feel refreshed and it’s good to be back,” said Maeder, who is looking forward to flying home to Singapore and celebrating his 18th birthday in four days’ time with friends and family.
Maeder enjoyed using the new generation of equipment for the first time in high-level competition – the smaller 21 sqm Flysurfer V3 kite and the R6 edition of the Levitaz foil and mast combination. “Other people might still pick the older gear but I really like using the new gear,” said Maeder. “It just feels more efficient even if the new kite is smaller. And you have more modes for going high or low at different points on the race course, and overall I would say the average VMG speeds with the new kite and foil are going to be slightly higher.”
Maeder’s training partner Dolenc was also using a new Flysurfer kite but on the new V4 version of the gold-medal-winning Chubanga foil package. The Croatian claimed silver ahead of Gomez also on a Chubanga, but using one of the Element kites he has been busy co-designing. “I’m very happy with how the new kite went this week,” said Gomez. “It shows we are on the right track and we were having good performance against the Flysurfers.”
It was complicated
Compared with Maeder, Kampman’s path to gold was nothing like as straightforward. The French rider had dominated the fleet racing days earlier in the regatta but she couldn’t quite pull her best performance together in the final. Elena Lengwiler’s victory in the first final race put the Swiss rider on match point alongside Kampman. But then in the next race Gal Zukerman stole their thunder as the Israeli rider took the next win.
Zukerman was well on her way to another race win in the third finals race after making a bold port-tack start out to the less-fancied right-hand-side of the first windward leg. However, at the top of the final windward leg, Zukerman failed to execute her tack in the dying breeze and fell off the foil. Kampman held her nerve and stayed on the foil to take the one race win she needed to seal gold in Austria.
Subdued but Successful
Jessie Kampman had won her first ever KiteFoil World Series title, although she was slightly subdued in victory: “I wasn’t really happy with my performance today, I didn’t sail as well as I had hoped and I won the last race when the other riders fell off the foil, but I’m really happy how I sailed the rest of the week. I have been thinking the past few months if I wanted to do another Olympic campaign and now I have decided to go forward with it.”
“I wanted to see how it felt riding on the new equipment and I’m enjoying it, but also I want to do some other things in my life, like using my law degree in that field. So I will be doing the kiting alongside other things for the next two years, not going full-time at training like I have done for the past few years.”
Behind Kampman, Lengwiler took the silver and Zukerman the bronze, again with a variety of Flysurfer/ Element kites and Levitaz/ Chubanga combinations making it to the podium.
Post-Olympic Hangover
Although Valentin Bontus only finished seventh on home waters, the Olympic Champion is still getting to grips with the new equipment as well as his new celebrity status that sees the ever-smiling Austrian in hot demand with fans and the media. Over time the fizz and excitement around his gold-medal-winning performance from Paris 2024 will fade away at which point he can refocus on what he does best and start challenging Maeder and the other leading lights at the front of the fleet.
It’s exciting times for kitefoiling and now the circuit moves on swiftly to Cagliari in early October for KiteFoil World Series Sardinia.
RESULTS MEN
- Maximilian Maeder SGP GOLD
- Martin Dolenc CRO SILVER
- Benoit Gomez FRA BRONZE
RESULTS WOMEN
- Jessie Kampman FRA GOLD
- Elena Lengwiler SUI SILVER
- Gal Zukerman ISR BRONZE
Text Credits: Andy Rice / IKA Media
Photo Credits: IKA Media / Robert Hajduk
Video Credits: ICARUS Sports
