Gabriele Steindl: Professional Kitesurfer & Freelance Writer - Action, Lifestyle & Travels

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PKRA World Cup Cabarete, Dom.Rep, 15-20 June 2004

Cabarete counts every year as one of ‘THE’ major events in the PKRA tour calendar. This year sponsored by ‘Best Kiteboarding’, already at the registration it became obvious that the event would be huuuge and spectacular with more than 50 men and almost 30 women!

That’s so great about this event that really ALL top riders – usually at the European events, the top US pro’s are missing and at the US events the Europeans… – show up. Currently ranked as number 6, I was prequalified – lucky cause a strange virus knocked me out and I was lying in bed with fever and a bad ear infection .. why do things like this always happen when you need to be in top top physical condition !?. Once the male and female fought hard for the few open spaces, the main event could start. Wooow, guys, I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t seen it: double handle passes, kite loop handle passes – yep, riders like Aaron Hadlow shooting out of the water like a catapult, unhooked and looping hugely, passing the bar half way through the move !! Also the girls were ripping harder than ever before .. yep, we even saw first air passes in addition to Cindy Mosey, obviously, the current World Champ and first woman who did a ‘Back Mobe’.All throughout the event, there’s been some controversies in the judging – crashed moves were counted, style suddenly didn’t seem to be that important no more and power moves were worth more than anything else…

In the girls, Angela Peral, my North team mate from Spain surprised everyone when she won the single elimination over Cindy Mosey by pulling off some siiick kite loops. Third came Kristin Boese, impressing the judges with extremely stylish blind moves. I finished 9th – certainly not the result that I was aiming for but physically not on top and kind of confused with the ‘new’ judging criterias, still happy being amongst the top 10.In the male division, Jaime Herraiz could finally pull it off and win a World Cup event for the first time! In the final against Aaron Hadlow he landed the sickest technical kite loop and handle pass moves, one could only imagine .. well done, dude!!

Once the freestyle was finished, riders could go even crazier in the ‘Best Trick’ … and believe me, the top guys were really pushing the limits to the full!! Once again, Jaime’s highly technical hardcore moves convinced the judges and he came first followed by Alex Tritten and Gianni Aragno. Cindy won the girls in front of local hero and Queen of the Air 2003 Susie Mai.

At the time of transferring this post from the previous onto the brandnew version of www.kitegabi.com, the following articles have been published about my trips to the Dominican Republic:   ‘Portfolio Cabarete’ (in French) for Kiteboarder Magazine and   ‘Chica Wings’ (in German) for Kite Magazine, have a read, enjoy & have fun!