From the media office:

Earlier in the week.... the winds on Wednesday went nuclear. Hennie, Basil, Sebastien, Alex, Charlotte, Christophe, Manu, Sophie and Tim all hit the water. Brave, because the wind was gusting to almost 55 knots.

Everyone experienced the biggest challenge for speed-sailing with a kiteboard: while almost no other watercraft can race in wind as strong as this, it brings its own limitations. Going really, really fast is easy (for a highly trained expert.). Crashing very hard is even easier. The challenge is to make it down the whole 500m at peak speed. The wipe-outs today were spectacular.

Conditions on Wednesday were perfect to reach incredible speeds, though. All the competitors were feeling an electric sense of anticipation about the competition. They were all training hard - focusing on the best techniques for handling the very strong wind. Equipment is also better than last year, the shapes of the boards are different, and much improved.

 
Some quotable quotes and peak speeds:
Hennie Bredenkamp (58 knots): "electric, it's my best speed ever!"
Alex Caizergues (59.5 knots)
Basil Cambanis (52.5): "I went maybe too late in the water" 
Sebastien Cattelan (61.8 knots): "It was spectacular. We hope to push the limits further and maybe to break the outright record again. The dream gave me wings to run the event and motivated me to ride like never before."
Sophie Routaboul (40 knots)
Charlotte Consorti (43 knots)


Fabrice, the official time keeper was tuning his gear to be ready to do a race test on Thursday.

Stay tuned. only a few days to go for the start.