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2014 Formula Kite World Championships Day 3

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Toby
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2014 Formula Kite World Championships Day 3

Postby Toby » Fri Aug 22, 2014 6:52 pm

IKA News:

2014 Formula Kite World Championships Day 3

1 ika.jpg
Day three of the 2014 Formula Kite World Championships in Burc Beach, Istanbul/Turkey saw the beginning of the Final Series for the mens fleet, with Oliver Bridge (GBR, North) topping the leaderboard with a strong lightwind performance. Maxime Nocher (FRA, North) jumped into second position with a 1-2 score, while Riccardo Leccese (ITA, ML/Ozone) defends his bronce podium spot.

In the strong womens fleet it was again a neck-on-neck battle between leader Steph Bridge (GBR, North), defending World Champion Erika Heineken (USA, ML/Ozone) and 17 year old runner up Elena Kalinia (RUS, UC/Elf).

Due to light and variable winds racing was postponed first until 1600 hours, when the breeze finally stabilized at 7 knots and racing got underway.

The gold fleet was to hit the waters of the Black Sea first, with Nocher showing incredible lightwind skills, swapping places with the other light wind specialists Blazej Ozog (POL, North) and Bridge. The two leaders after the qualifying series struggeled with the condition and finished only in 7th (Leccese) and 14th (Gruber). In the second round of racing conditions had improved to 8-10 knots and the usual battle was on between Bridge, Leccese and Nocher, with Bridge clearly leading the second Final Series Race when crashing shortly before the finish line and Nocher catching up fast. Both came to the finish line overlapped, with the better end for Bridge.

A strong performance also from two other Under-18s in the fleet, Mario Calbucci (ITA, UC/Elf) scoring a 5-4 and Alexander Bachev (BUL, UC/Ozone) scoring a 9-5.

In the womens fleet it all comes down to a battle between Bridge, Heineken and Kalinina, after 10 races and the second discard only 5 points separate them and in the forecasted light conditions for day 4 Kalinina might be able to further close the gap to the two leaders which are only 2.7 points apart. Aga Grzymska (POL, ML/Ozone) also showed a strong performance in the light winds with a 2-4 score, but is already 9 points behind the third place.

Racing continues on day 4 with the last day of the mens final series and the last day of the womens single opening series, before the top 10 of each fleet will fight for the ultimate podiumspots on the final day of the competition in a 4-race-no drop medal series.

Overall standings after 10 races:

MEN:
1. Oliver Bridge (GBR, North) - 6 pts
2. Maxime Nocher (FRA, North) - 11 pts
3. Riccardo Leccese (ITA, ML/Ozone) - 16 pts
4. Blazej Ozog (POL, North) - 20 pts
5. Florian Gruber (GER, UC/Ozone) - 24 pts

WOMEN:
1. Steph Bridge (GBR, North) - 13 pts
3. Erika Heineken (USA, ML/Ozone) - 15.7 pts
2. Elena Kalinina (RUS, TMV/Elf) - 18 pts
4. Aga Grzymska (POL, ML/Ozone) - 27 pts
5. Astrid Berz (SUI, ML/Ozone) - 35 pts

Full results can be found HERE

A video profile of three of the top male contenders is available here:


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Re: 2014 Formula Kite World Championships Day 3

Postby ronnie » Sat Aug 23, 2014 6:01 pm

In the women's event a great 5th World Champion title for Steph Bridge after a great 3-way battle with Erica and Elena.

In the men's it is a somewhat strange result.

This is the final scoresheet.

http://www.kitenews.fr/wp-content/uploa ... ce-Men.pdf

Oliver Bridge completely dominated the final races but because of a non-start in one race, ended up third in the World Championships.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=802706303102243

It seems that the result depended on the sailing instructions and what their definition of a Series was.

CHANGES TO APPENDIX A
A1 NUMBER OF RACES; OVERALL SCORES
Rule A1 is changed to:
The number of races scheduled and the number required to be
completed to constitute a series shall be stated in the sailing
instructions. If an event includes more than one discipline or
format, the sailing instructions shall state how the overall
scores are to be calculated.

It seems strange that you can be penalised based on 26 kiteboards competing when you are actually in a series of races with only 10 kiteboards in them.

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Re: 2014 Formula Kite World Championships Day 3

Postby ronnie » Sat Aug 23, 2014 9:24 pm

I see now how they came up with the 27 point penalty - there were 26 kiteboards competing in the Gold Fleet and that was the last race of the 4 by the Gold fleet.

As early as the first Gold Fleet race, someone got a 27 point penalty.

http://internationalkiteboarding.org/im ... esults.pdf

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Re: 2014 Formula Kite World Championships Day 3

Postby longwhitecloud » Sun Aug 24, 2014 11:10 pm

How come they don't do at least one discard over 10 races?

I don't know what happened, but with the fairly high possibility of your kite just getting messed up - eg foil kite bridle tangles/ gear failure/ sopping wet foil kite so you cant get to the start line - it seems a super rough way to do things.

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Re: 2014 Formula Kite World Championships Day 3

Postby ronnie » Mon Aug 25, 2014 7:57 pm

longwhitecloud wrote:How come they don't do at least one discard over 10 races?

I don't know what happened, but with the fairly high possibility of your kite just getting messed up - eg foil kite bridle tangles/ gear failure/ sopping wet foil kite so you cant get to the start line - it seems a super rough way to do things.
It does seem strange to have no discards over 10 races, where the points were cumulative.
They seemed to take the attitude that the last 4 races were a different series because they reduced the numbers from 26 to 10 racers, but with the cumulative scores carrying for all 10 races for the top 10 racers, it seems more sensible to have a discard.
The guy who scored 8 first places 1 third place and a DNS out of the 10 races finished third!

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Re: 2014 Formula Kite World Championships Day 3

Postby longwhitecloud » Tue Aug 26, 2014 1:15 am

Whoever won, won if it was to the rules, but i wouldnt want to be leaving random chance to all the effort of competing, especially with kiting tangles. Always like to see how the racing is going, IMO though it has turned into something it never needed to be - a sport that takes all the elements of the class system (rich vs poor) and bastardizes its potential. That is not what kiting is about for me.


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