This article was written in 2024 by 2023 Danish champion Isak Anton Petersen (Brother of OceanSoul's founder Emely).
Perhaps you have heard of a Danish championship, or heard that so-and-so has become Danish champion in kitesurfing. But how do you become the champion? Which disciplines can you compete in and how is the competition judged?
Which kitesurf categories can you compete in and how do you win?
There are three different kitesurfing categories you can compete in: Freeride, Freestyle & Q Freestyle, which is the only category for women only. Women can also participate in the other two ranks.
Freeride covers hooked tricks, such as hops, rotations, one-foot, board-offs, darkslides in various variations, etc.
In freestyle, unhooked tricks such as Heath Attack, KGB, Back Mobe etc. are judged.
For each event, the participants will be placed in an elimination system, where you sail "heats" and compete against 1 or 2 other athletes. In the first rounds you race for position, in later rounds, even if you can't win in the early rounds, they can have a big impact on your later opponent, as well as the number of heats you have to sail. In the later rounds, from round 4 it's win or lose. This means that if you win you go on to the next round, if you lose you are out. This continues until a winner of the event has been found.
The Danish championship is decided over 3 events, where points are given to the athletes based on their placement in each event. For the final and decisive event, the athletes with the most points will be crowned on the podium.
20th anniversary of kite competitions in Denmark
Kitetour Denmark celebrated its 20th anniversary this year, and at the same time the assessment criteria were updated in both the freeride and freestyle categories. Kitesurfing is a sport in rapid development and the elite athletes and competitions have a great influence in which direction the sport moves.
Therefore, the Kitetour Danmark crew together with the athletes spent the winter season updating the evaluation criteria and the scoreboard.
Rules 2024 - how are you assessed?
Each heat is either 6 or 7 minutes (The length of the heat is set by the crew based on the weather forecast and the conditions). During that time, the sailors must perform their best tricks, which will be judged on a score from 0 to 10 points based on degree of difficulty and execution. In Freestyle the 4 best tricks apply and in Freeride the 3 best tricks + an overall impression scorer apply. In the freestyle category, "trick families" or "trick categories" must also be taken into account. This means that tricks that are the same or the same rotation cannot apply more than once, so you have to do 4 completely different tricks. Together with the freestyle athletes, the Kitetour crew has, based on international examples, put together a scoreboard but a basic score and trick families that are used to judge freestyle.
Freestyle scoreboard
Based on the base score, the judges must judge whether the trick should be given fewer or more points on the basis of a number of factors, such as power, height, style and kite position. This is especially where there has been a great focus on quality over quantity in recent years, i.e. a technically easier trick done nicely and well is better than a technically difficult trick done poorly. When each event has been completed, 1st, 2nd and 3rd place are called up on the podium.
Everyone is welcome to Kitetour regardless of level and it is clearly a good place to learn new moves get some motivation to learn new tricks to improve on the water.
Kitetour - a family business
Oceansoul's founder Emely has competed in Denmark's championship for many years and has been on top of the podium as Denmark's champion twice and has also collected a number of 2nd and 3rd places over the years. Kitetour Denmark has had a great influence on her kite career and life.
Not only that Kitetour Denmark is a high-level competition that pushes you to the limit year after year, it is also a hugely enjoyable and social event. Where you gather Denmark's entire kite scene and accommodate a large spectrum of levels.
"I have gotten to know many of my best friends in the community through Kitetour, and even though we have competed against each other, there has always been fun and a good supportive atmosphere at the competitions and we have also seen each other and been friends outside the competitions. When I started competing I couldn't even ride upwind, but decided to participate to meet new people in the environment and everyone was so nice and supportive and I quickly learned a lot of new tricks on the water," says Emely.
Emely is not the only one in the family who is engraved on the trophies, in fact all 3 trophies have been with the OceanSoul family. Emely's younger brother Isak, who is also sometimes a guest kite coach on OceanSoul's kitesurfing trips around the world, participated for the first time in Kitetour back in 2014 as only 12 years old as Kitetour's youngest participant and has since climbed his way to the top.
Video of Isak riding in 2014 as a 12-year-old. At our favorite spot Akyaka in Turkey, where we among other places organizes kitesurf camps.
In the years that followed, Isak won several 2nd and 3rd places, and then 4 seasons later, in 2017, it became a first place in the B series, which is now called freeride. Still as the youngest participant.
After this, Isak moved on to the A row, what is now called freestyle. In 2022 he got an overall 2nd place. In 2023, there was a big change in the Danish Championship, Kitetour Denmark and Kiteboarding Denmark decided that the Kitetour and the Danish Championship should become an open championship, that is, in contrast to before, where you had to be resident in Denmark to be able to participate, kitesurfers from other countries now also participate. This meant that the participant list increased significantly and we saw more sailors from as far as Germany, Sweden and Norway taking part. In the same year in 2023, Isak competed in the freestyle series and thereby became Danish champion. He became the first person to have won both series. (In the same year, Nick Jacobsen won the Freeride series and thereby accomplished the same).
This year (2024), Isak also participated in the freestyle Danish championship and got a nice 2nd place after Norwegian Sigurd in 1st place.
You can read more about kitetour on their website HERE
Reas more about the 2024 competition HERE
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