Round 1 results, video, photos and details – WKL Finals New Caledonia

Spoiler alert

Wow, what a great 2 heats, the best part about a slightly smaller field for this even is the time to really concentrate on the riders and the closeness of the top girls as they fight for the podium places at not just this event but the year as a whole.

The addition of live drone footage on the livefeed added another element which really showcases this incredible spot and the dropping tide created the perfect flat water lagoon for the riders to show the best of their tricks. This with the already perfected slow motion replays and contribution on the live feed from riders around the world make this without a doubt the best broadcast kiteboarding competition we have ever seen and well worth staying up until the early hours to watch.

HEAT 01

The first hear was between Marine Duprat, Pauline Valesa, Annabel van Westerop and Hannah Whiteley.

Hannah Whiteley exploded out of the blocks with a 6.7 back mobe on her first trick and never lost the lead throughout the heat going on to secure a strong win with a total of 27.87 points thanks to a KGB that scored 8.27 as her final trick. She only crashed once and that was in the first KGB attempt and this gave her the win, advancement to round three and a likely huge confidence boost.

Annabel van Westerop should not be discredited as they did not crash once in her heat and had not ridden for a number of weeks as she had been studying and university and taking exams whilst the rest of the girls took a long training break in Brazil for a few months versus a few weeks for her. That said her confidence and state of mind are in a very good place right now and it showed.

She nailed a high scoring back to blind, front blind and s-bend to blind each scoring over 6 points, and a slim chance added to that gave her a total of 24.83.

Pauline Valesa was so close behind Annabel with a final score of 23.56 with the highest score of the heat with a huge back to blind getting her 6.83 points. She did crash twice however and just lacked the higher scoring fourth trick to grab second place away from Annabel but rode a strong heat.

Marina Duprat got off to a slower start with four crashes in five tricks as she was unlucky with a few landings, but then stomped a big back to blind and s-mobe which bought her back up to a final score or 17.56.

Final results from Heat 01 sees first and second advance to round three and third and fourth battle it out again in round two.

• 1st WHITELEY H. / BEST (GBR) – 27.87
• 2nd V. WESTEROP A./ CORE (ABW) – 24.83
• 3rd VALESA P. / F-ONE (FRA) – 23.56
• 4th DUPRAT M. / OZONE (FRA) – 17.56

HEAT 02

The second heat saw title favourite again Maureen Castelle, Rita Arnaus and Paula Novotna .

Bruna Kajiya looked in another class in her first heat and she stomped a huge blind judge 3, followed by a 315, slim chance, s-bend to blind, KGB and front blind, only just crashing on her last trick attempt. Her amplitude was huge, her passes very in the air and with an 8.87 for her KGB which saw her add in the grab (we cannot confirm 100% if she made contact with the board or not) which you can see at 1:56:00 in the live feed above.

This all helped to give her a total score of 30.6.

Paula Novotna also came in firing out of the blocks but unfortunately didn’t get her first two tricks as clean as she would have liked to in the landing which left her initially trailing, however she picked it up with a very impressive double s-bend to blind, back to blind and front blind, earning her a final score of 26.07 and securing the second spot.

Rita Arnaus got the third spot with a total score of 20.36 after a mixed heat that had a high scoring back to blind and blind judge, but also saw her crash twice meaning she did not have the collection of high scores she was after for the top two places.

Maureen Castelle came in fourth with 14.46 after also just lucking out on some of her landings only allowing her to notch up three scoring tricks for her total which does not do justice to her really holding her own against some of the more seasoned tour riders.

Final results from Heat 02 sees first and second advance to round three and third and fourth battle it out again in round two.

• 1st KAJIYA B. / AIRUSH (BRA) – 30.6
• 2nd NOVOTNA P. / NORTH (CZE) – 26.07
• 3rd ARNAUS R. / BEST (ESP) – 20.36
• 4th CASTELLE M. / OZONE (FRA) – 14.46

This means that in round two we will see Marina Depart in a straight duel with Pauline Valesa as the two local riders slug it out in heat 03, and Maureen Castelle against Rita Arnaus in heat 04. Due to the ladder size all riders will advance to round three where we will see two more heats, this time with only the first two riders going through.

The first heat of the means round one was run yesterday which means there are three more round one heats to run today before we get back to the ladies. The wind forecast is looking great and the action starts around 9pm GMT on the World Kiteboarding League Facebook page with live scores on the WKL website.

Set your watches.

Published on: 15th December 2016