There's been a distinct lack of firepower from the Ozone team when it comes to wake style riding, but not anymore!

For years, the Ozone team has tried to push their wake style team, to no avail as riders left, swapped sponsors, lost interest or just didn't perform. Despite having one of the leading C kites on the market, the C4, Ozone pushed their racing kite the Edge due to the high demand and good race results from team riders like Adam Koch. As a result the brand is now seen as one for serious riders, or the older generation of kitesurfers.

This year with the release of the Ozone Reo, the brand has attempted to pull back some of the younger generation with some success. The Reo, like the C4 is known as one of the class leaders, but still no big name riders are using the brand.

That’s all about to change with the addition of two very ‘un-Ozone like’ team riders who could either make or break the brands image. Jake Kelsick and Alex Lewis-Hughes, both big advocates for the wakestyle genre and now riding the bridled C kite, the C4 for Ozone. And if anyone has the influence to chance the face of Ozone, it’s those two.

Jake Kelsick, also known as Andre Philips protégé, hangs out in Antigua in the West Indies, formerly riding for Cabrinha. Since the advent of new (wakestyle only) company Tona, Jake has been riding their boards with Cabrinha kites, in right from the very start of Tona, he was their main team rider, heavily involved in product testing and the promo shoots for the company. Now on Ozone (who don’t make boards) the match will work perfectly, Tona boards, Ozone kites. The video below shows a bit of the action from the new C4, but with only a couple of weeks to grab footage, this is just a taster of what’s to come.

Sor Rowdy, Tweak or otherwise known as Alex Lewis-Hughes, was formerly a Slingshot junky. Now travelling the world as a judge on the PKRA world tour circuit, he’s spending less time on the Seabreeze.com.au and Kitescoop forums, and more time riding wakestyle. Like Jake, he’s also riding Tona boards, not because they pay him for it, but because they’re the newest thing goin’ around. For a long time Alex was a huge advocate for kiteboarders riding in the wakestyle genre, heavily pushing for everyone to ride ‘legit’ with their kite low, in bindings with more focus on stylish riding than multiple rotations as seen in the PKRA circuit. He also spends a lot of time on a wakeskate, which has no bindings and is more like a skateboard for water, luckily Tona make one of those as well.

So with two big names in wakestyle pushing the brand in a totally new direction, it’s going to be really interesting to see where Ozone go from here, hopefully it’s in a good direction.

Check out the short video from jake Kelsick below, and stay tuned for the real promo stuff they’ll be releasing later in the year.