one person I would like to see riding in KOTA would be Airton Cozzolino from the strapless freestyle side. He's the most aggressive rider and goes huge in windy conditions. And also lands with great speed different kiteloops variations. As he is used to board offs, it would be nice to see how he would fair in these competitions. He also does flat threes strapless...
Check this at 0.17-0.19 move and kite position... Well, perhaps check the whole video, although it lacks a lot of big air stuff
Was marks trick impressive? yes.
Did it get high scores. I guess not.
Why? It didn't meet the main judging criteria which is height. It lacked height compared to the others.
Its no RB's fault that Mark chose to showcase a lower level technical trick in a boosting comp.
The rules are clear and well stated before the event. Riders have ample time to practice a style to suit the event rules.
It seems a weird crusade that you are on. Attempting to persuade people that a competition should be changed to suit one particular riders style.
PS. As this is the most watched kiting event on the planet I guess rb has got the recipe right.
yeah imagine him on some real gear: "boom goes the dynamite"
hahah
one person I would like to see riding in KOTA would be Airton Cozzolino from the strapless freestyle side. He's the most aggressive rider and goes huge in windy conditions. And also lands with great speed different kiteloops variations. As he is used to board offs, it would be nice to see how he would fair in these competitions. He also does flat threes strapless...
Check this at 0.17-0.19 move and kite position... Well, perhaps check the whole video, although it lacks a lot of big air stuff
I do enjoy strapless kiting a lot, however, I have the impression the skills of it can be better shown in another competition than KOTA. Waves as kickers is not enough for excellent strapless action.
That said, I don't mind anybody entering the competition on whatever ride they want. I just wouldn't change the judging criteria to accommodate specific riding styles, but keep it to "king of the AIR.
Btw. videos like the one linked make me question even the energy used to click the link and even more the time wasted watching. No jump from the beginning to the end, no appreciation of the riders efforts, no enthusiasm in the edit. To me this video looks like random left overs put together.
Don't get me wrong, I love to see great action on film, but this just isn't a great film, even though the action is beyond any doubt!
Kota took kite comps to a bigger level and for a short time outran the issue at the core of twin tip kiteboarding competition and professional level riding.
Dangle.
Dangle was purged organically in freestyle by the need for ever increasing degree of difficulty. Freestyle lost its height requirement altogether, and its made a few people sore ever since.
Big air will go about it a little more slowly, but KOTA will have to recon with the same thing. Big kite loops were getting too repetitive, and taking the board off has given the comp something new while also catering to a height requirement. I tend to think KOTA will continue to evolve and we will again slowly see the natural purging of dangle. Until then, we should absolutely allow handles and whatever else riders might want to use as there will always be someone who will do something harder and get rewarded for it. At this stage, it sucks for guys like Marc. Until KOTA decides that max height is not the goal, we are in Kevin's time, where height is king, longer lines the norm, loops done below the kite and there is inevitably some dangle.
Last year was the start of the boardoff phase of KOTA. Marc ran with that but at his size he went for power and impressive kite angle over height. Makes sense for a heavy guy. Super impressive, but sadly he gets the short end of the stick... Next year, he'll be on longer lines.
Not underestimating the risk and technicality of Jesse's impressive handle pass(es), but there was definitely a dangling factor in there. With many rotations on the way down, because well... there was no other choice.
For a while, I felt transported back in time, before kiteboarders collectively decided that one ample slow controlled rotation was actually more stylish than as many rotations as possible crammed into a move.
Definitely more impressed with Marc's dynamics.
Aurelien did also multiple rotations but that was on a completely different plane, while being yanked horizontally.
Not coming back on the rules of the comp, that's what it is, and riders played by those rules and won accordingly, brilliantly. But not necessarily scoring as high on my style-o-meter (which is irrelevant)
I'm saying evolution will continue. Freestyle might be dead, but it clearly defined the hierarchy of degree of difficulty. When all other aspects of jump are equal a board off trumps a rotation, and a handle pass trumps them both. No one is there yet. Once the guys throwing passes can match the height of the guys doing boardoffs, what you see at KOTA will shift. The boardoff at height with a loop is having a moment. Marc does by far the most stylish ones, but height is the scoring factor holding him back. Sad really, even if they were all on the same line length I doubt a big guy like that could ever match the height of the middle weights.
We are not at the end of the progression and we've been through it before. History will repeat itself, and you can bet, Once most of the top riders can do an inverted pass at height during a loop, someone on here will complain about it!
These users thanked the author jumptheshark for the post:
one person I would like to see riding in KOTA would be Airton Cozzolino from the strapless freestyle side. He's the most aggressive rider and goes huge in windy conditions. And also lands with great speed different kiteloops variations. As he is used to board offs, it would be nice to see how he would fair in these competitions. He also does flat threes strapless...
Check this at 0.17-0.19 move and kite position... Well, perhaps check the whole video, although it lacks a lot of big air stuff
I do enjoy strapless kiting a lot, however, I have the impression the skills of it can be better shown in another competition than KOTA. Waves as kickers is not enough for excellent strapless action.
That said, I don't mind anybody entering the competition on whatever ride they want. I just wouldn't change the judging criteria to accommodate specific riding styles, but keep it to "king of the AIR.
Btw. videos like the one linked make me question even the energy used to click the link and even more the time wasted watching. No jump from the beginning to the end, no appreciation of the riders efforts, no enthusiasm in the edit. To me this video looks like random left overs put together.
Don't get me wrong, I love to see great action on film, but this just isn't a great film, even though the action is beyond any doubt!
sorry, I forgot to write, that one should give Airton a twintip for KOTA and see what happens. This was actually a random video because I couldn't find quickly the boogie loop other than from this video. He landed those in the latest competition of the GKA tour.
I saw him write a very complimentary congratulations to Kevin L regarding his KOTA win, on his insta.
There is no doubt the rules counted against trick progression/innovation, seemed more so this year. Think about Aarons KGB megaloop a few years ago - way lower, but won. The maths of 70/30 today make innovation a waste of time.
Its totally fair to comment on IMO. Judging should be fully transparent, with scoring examples, opportunity to talk to the trained judges about what they are looking for and exactly how they will calculate the final score based on the 70/30 rule based on height difference /trick(rather than guess), otherwise an already subjective judging system becomes even more subjective.
The ski rescue looked an awesome improvement as well as the scoring system. The KOTA needs more judging transparency imo - just telling everyone 70\30 just means nothing. WSL made things super transparent - has made the comps way better than they used to be when everyone was arguing whether Kelly or Andy should have won due to too much subjectivity