Gabriele Steindl: Professional Kitesurfer & Freelance Writer - Action, Lifestyle & Travels
15
May 05
BetandWin Kitesurf Open, Tarifa, Spanien, 11-15 May
First time that ‘BetandWin’, an online gambling platform, already engaging in many different sports, sponsors a kitesurfing event. An invitational event, only for the top-riders, in Europe’s kite-capital Tarifa and of course, ‘Kitegabi’is part of it ;))
I wish every event would be organised like this one: perfect spot, lovely people, great team, fantastic set-up in the ValdeVaqueros and the best: a totally different format to the ‘usual’ (yeah, there will be quite a few different disciplines: X-Moves, basically a ‘best-trick’; Boarder-X and a Long-Distance X-ing) …. what could we ask for more!? ooooops, of course, good conditions, which one would given for granted in Tarifa, no? But hey, that’s competition, and of course everything, once again, comes all soooo different than expected …!?
Today is Sunday, the last day and we’re waiting for the wind…
The last days, the conditions weren’t typical ‘Tarifa-conditions’ either but however, we managed to do the X-Moves – came 4th !! yeah, sweet…amongst other radical stuff, I did a huuuuuuge kiteloop off the lip of a wave – and started the Boarder-X – unfortunately could only finish the guys 🙁 – and yesterday evening we did the Long-Distance. Yeeeeeah, that was great fun….just as I arrived with reeeaaallly, reeeaaally tired legs, mhhhh, was informed that the race has been cancelled due to some people who started to early….daaaaamn, and I was so fast…
Nevermind, today, if the wind comes up, we’ll be doing it all again…hope my legs will hold up as they defintiely are tired od yesterday…!?
_________________________
A few hours later….still Sunday, 15th May: yes yes yes, the wind did pick up finally during the late afternoon on the last day of competition and we could do the Long-Distance again. Man, was I fast and wow, I was so, so lit on my 14m2…but Angela Peral, the local, had a better tactic. She went all along the coast very near the beach in the shorebreak, whereas me, I was quite far out where the see was rough…and so I’m happy about coming second in front of Kristin Boese.