New GKA Freestyle Kite World Champions 2022
Mikaili Sol (BRA) and Gianmaria Coccoluto (ITA)
The women were up first and Bruna Kajiya got the day started with her ever impressive clockwork style. But it was women’s tour leader and reigning world champion, Mikaili Sol, who hit the alarm for what was to come, opening her account with a huge stalefish slim 5 and then a 317 on trick four.
In the men's race, Manoel Soares had the chance to win his first world title. As the draw would have it, he faced second ranked rider Gianmaria Coccoluto in that quarter final, as well as Valentin Garat and a local ripper with a huge reputation, Erick Anderson. All Gianmaria Coccoluto could do at this event was keep winning his heats and hope that Soares would trip up before reaching the semi finals. Now it was in his hands, but even if he won the heat he’d need help from one of the others to push Manoel into third, and out of the competition. Coccoluto produced a performance for the ages. Attacking without fear, he ripped Taiba lagoon apart like never before. Soares led after two tricks, but started to slip as the Italian hit full beast mode, scoring two nines and then two tens in succession that sent goosebumps through the crowd and left the judges in awe. Having uncharacteristically caught a front edge on his third trick, Manoel started to look tense. He forced out a 319 and a 315 and then the backside 315 on his last trick attempt just wasn’t good enough to overtake in-form lagoon specialist, Erick Anderson, who went through to semis behind Coccoluto.
There are still three contenders for the title, but only two remain in the competition. Manoel now has to sit things out and wait to see if Gianmaria or Juan Rodriguez will win the event or not. Those two meet next in the semi-finals!
Making it through as top performers in the men’s division, we can’t look past the Brazilians Manoel Soares and Carlos Mario, clearly at home in these lagoon and warm wind conditions. They were the only two riders to break 30 point heat scores – with relentlessly smooth technicality. Just before the Brazilians ended the day on a high, yesterday's challenger, Gianmaria Coccoluto, held off Arthur Guillebert, Adeuri Corniel and Robin Goetebuer in his quarterfinal. Swiss star Maxime Chabloz was challenged in the quarterfinals by German Finn Flugal, who is only 13 years old. The young teenager put up an impressive fight, but failed to reach the 5.90 on his seventh and final trick attempt, which he needed to put Maxime under pressure again and secure second place.
In the women's event, Bruna Kajiya achieved the highest score of the day (22.73) and won the first round thanks to an amazingly close chance just before the end, which she somehow held on to with 7.30 points! Nathalie Lambrecht unfortunately lost to Bruna in this round, but managed to beat Alexandra Torres and Estefania Rosa in her subsequent individual round and was the second highest scorer of the day with 19.33.
Men’s round four was the very close: Heat between Maxime Chabloz (15.93) and Francesco Cappuzzo (14.57). A scrappy fight for waves was separated by a marginal difference between two excellent front flips off kickers, in Maxime’s favour. But the most nail-biting heat, and perhaps most surprising result, given the predominant weighting towards wave riding, was the heat between Brazilian waterman and ex-windsurfing wave world champion Kauli Seadi, and French tour regular, Bastien Escofet.
Kauli had been first to take advantage with a good wave from left to right across the whole comp area early in the heat, before the two then traded good frontside waves. Six minutes to go in the ten minute heat and it was tight; 16.39 to 16.33 to the Brazilian. Bastien spent four minutes caught on the inside and had to paddle out past the shore break. He finally made it out and, with 90 seconds to go, landed a fully committed front flip that earned him a 7.23. He slipped into the lead while Kauli was caught on the inside and this was the best example of how the single freestyle trick could be used to make a crucial difference when wave riding more or less otherwise dominated proceedings.
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The wind dropped just before the end of round three, but winning their heats and already advancing directly to round five were Juan Rodriguez, Maxime Chabloz, Gianmaria Coccoluto, Arthur Guillebert, Manoel Soares and Posito Martinez.
Juan Rodriguez (COL), currently lying in third on tour, was the first big name to test the waters against Belgian Goetgebuer and Egyptian Moussa. Maxime Chabloz banging home a win in R3 heat two that contained a high trick score of 8.33 for a massive 319. Only he and Coccoluto would break heat scores of 30 points on day one.
Gianmaria Coccoluto was up next in heat three, but had a testy fight on his hands against Luiz Alberto Cruz who can always bring the biggest tricks. The Domincan looked over powered and just couldn’t add in the extra poise and style we know him for. Cocco kept the pressure on and remained in control throughout.
The wind dropped too much to continue the event around 1pm local time, but having already reared up and looking in very relaxed form, doing just enough to also win their R3 morning heats were current tour leader Manoel Soares, 2021 World Champion Arthur Guillebert and powerful all-round kiter Posito Martinez.
Making it through as top performers in the men’s division, we can’t look past the Brazilians Manoel Soares and Carlos Mario, clearly at home in these lagoon and warm wind conditions. They were the only two riders to break 30 point heat scores – with relentlessly smooth technicality. Just before the Brazilians ended the day on a high, yesterday's challenger, Gianmaria Coccoluto, held off Arthur Guillebert, Adeuri Corniel and Robin Goetebuer in his quarterfinal. Swiss star Maxime Chabloz was challenged in the quarterfinals by German Finn Flugal, who is only 13 years old. The young teenager put up an impressive fight, but failed to reach the 5.90 on his seventh and final trick attempt, which he needed to put Maxime under pressure again and secure second place.
In the women's event, Bruna Kajiya achieved the highest score of the day (22.73) and won the first round thanks to an amazingly close chance just before the end, which she somehow held on to with 7.30 points! Nathalie Lambrecht unfortunately lost to Bruna in this round, but managed to beat Alexandra Torres and Estefania Rosa in her subsequent individual round and was the second highest scorer of the day with 19.33.
The group that was to fight for the stage at the end consisted of Georg Egger, Martin Frey (Singer Racing Team), Martin Stosek (Canyon Northwave), Marc Stutzman (Canyon Northwave), Andreas Seewald (Canyon Northwave), Krzysztof Lukasik (JBG2 Cryospace) and Wout Alleman (Wilier-Pirelli). On the final climb, the race was blown up again by Egger's push. Only Frey and Seewald held on and it came down to a sprint of the three, which Frey won, while Egger came second and Seewald completed the all-German podium. With this result Egger took the lead and there was a radical change in the remaining top 10 places: Seewald moved up to second place, although he was already more than 3 minutes behind his compatriot.
In the women's race, the decision seemed to be in favour of Laura Daubermann (Trek Future Racing) after she had won the first two stages and had a lead of almost 7 minutes in the overall classification. But Janina Wust (Buff-Megamo) never gave up. The Swiss decided the race for herself and only Daubermann could stay with her. Not only did she miss the stage podium, but she also had to watch her lead in the overall standings shrink to just over a minute. With one stage to go, the overall standings are still completely open.
Both women teams started the game very strong and presented an attractive game with many defenses. The Swiss were able to gain a small lead, although it was never bigger than 4 points. During almost the full game duration of 3x 15 minutes the Swiss women were slightly in front. However, the Italian girls kept on fighting and, rightly, believed in their chances. In the last few minutes of the game, they managed to take the advantage and at the final whistle they had won the game by 2 points: 50-48.
In the final of the men's category, the line up was identical than in the women's game: Switzerland vs Italy. The two teams know each other very well and in the last final they met, at the European Championship in the United Kingdom in August, Italy had won the game. This time the Swiss wanted revanche and were ready for the meeting. Both teams showed, in front of several hundred spectators, an outstanding level of play. The Swiss did believe in their chances to win the game, but at the end, it was Italy who claimed the win on the result on 76 – 73.
Yesterday, Europe’s premium freestyle event celebrated a premiere, for the first time ever Freeskiers were part of the event. The FIS World Cup made its first guest appearance at the LAAX OPEN 2023 with two sport disciplines – snowboarding and freesking. Olympic champion Zoi Sadowski Synnott (NZL) and World champion Marcus Kleveland (NOR) take home the LAAX OPEN Slopestyle titles, while Japanese Junior Olympic champions Ono Mitsuki (JPN) and Ruka Hirano (JPN) are the 2023 Halfpipe champions. The winning quartet has one common denominator - the first LAAX OPEN victory for all four!
Premier victories for Johanne Killi and Andri Ragettli at the FIS Freeski World Cup in LAAX. Reigning Slopestyle World Champion and local hero Andri Ragettli (SUI) wins ahead of Olympic Champions Alex Hall (USA) and Birk Ruud (NOR). No stranger to the LAAX victory podium is Johanne Killi. As the first LAAX OPEN Freeski winner, the Norwegian completes the loop to the European Freeski Open, held in LAAX in previous years where she won in 2014 as a newcomer.
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