Gisela Pulido joins the Best Kiteboarding team
Gisela with her new gear, courtesy of Best.
The current world champion has spent most of her life on the road, following the PKRA world kiteboarding tour. Since the age of 10 (in 2004) she's been crowned the world champion a staggering total of 8 times already, and is tipped to win this years PKRA tour as well. Since the beginning it seems, Pulido's been riding Airush kiteboarding equipment with only a brief stint with American based company Slingshot kiteboarding around 2005. The move to Best Kiteboarding comes as somewhat of a surprise to many in the kiteboarding world, especially considering Airush's latest media releases in which she features heavily.
Reasons behind the move are being kept pretty quiet, but several sources are suggesting that a pretty hefty paycheque was involved. All Gisela had to say about the move was:
"One of the things that caught my attention is the Best equipment. The GP is a great kite for freestyle and will fulfill my needs to compete in the World Tour. In addition, it has a great Team. I have very good relationship with Mike Schitzhofer and I also admire him for his riding. Last thing, and very important as well is the image of family that I see. There's a very good feeling between everyone at BEST and I really like that, it feels like a family."
This year, Pulido plans to once again dominate the world kiteboarding competitions, not only in freestyle, but in the racing disciplines too - somewhere Best kiteboarding haven't really explored with great results so far. You can expect to see Best releasing a new race board this season, but it will be interesting to see if Gisela will be competing on a production model, or a custom made race board from her current designers.
Now her shoulder has healed, Gisela is back in Tarifa to continue her training for the upcoming PKRA world tour, dates are released on the 20th of January with the first round expected sometime in February. Stay tuned and we'll bring you the event locations and results as they're published throughout the 2012/2013 season.
benowa, QLD
