Reasons:
1. Kiteboarding is a fringe sport for people who are passionate about being on the ocean, not because its a popular sport. If it is in the olympics it will attract noobs who should be playing tennis or golf, the type of people who sit on the beach with the kite at 12 or hanging it over the ocean so it becomes dangerous for everyone else.
2. The Olympics kills sports. Look what happened to windsurfing and BMX riding. I remember they used to have xgames BMX events on TV all the time. Now there is nothing on TV. Too many big companies with their fingers in the pot and the image of BMX is now forever wrecked because it sits along side sports like javelin and discus throwing.
3. Really Boring. Course racing with everyone on one kite and board.
i know i don't associate bmx with javelin . I associate bmx with 10 year old kids though , not grown adults but thats just my opinion . Olympics will be good to get younger crew into the sport but i fail to see how it is going to "kill" the sport as you suggest it has to other sports . I think it is good for the people who want and can compete at that level and want to succeed on an olympic level .
For a "noob" to compete on a raceboard at an olympic level would make them a pretty talented "noob" . My money is on you being a bitter windsurfer who had made a new account just to troll the kitesurfing forums trying to get a bite :)
Yes I agree.
Anything that raises the global profile of Kitesurfing is bad in my book.
The last thing we need is more takeup by surf nazis and the MAMIL gang.
Think your looking at it wrong. Kite racing is taking the path of sailing, essentially moving away form the other forms of kiting, I would even say kite racing wouldn't want to be associated with surf and freestyle to get the profile it needs to be an Olympic sport.
If it does make the Olympics about the only things that they will have in common will be using a kite, you might be right on it generating more interest but your not going to see people on race boards at the local surf break or freestyle area.
Select to expand quoteSydPete said..
Think your looking at it wrong. Kite racing is taking the path of sailing, essentially moving away form the other forms of kiting, I would even say kite racing wouldn't want to be associated with surf and freestyle to get the profile it needs to be an Olympic sport.
If it does make the Olympics about the only things that they will have in common will be using a kite, you might be right on it generating more interest but your not going to see people on race boards at the local surf break or freestyle area.
Thats a fair point, as long as it stays with racing only.
The youth olympic medal was not offered directly to kiteboarding, its been offered by the IOC to the International Sailing federation (ISAF) that govern the sailing class of Kite Racing.
It will be listed as a sailing medal, much like kite racing has been included in the World Cup events for the past year.
We've already seen the funding start to flow to help develop more racers, specifically the juniors, by the way of travel grants recently.
We have a local junior travelling to the world chanps next month.
The olympic will mean more formal support for juniors, training and funding.
Will it mean the local break is over run with new kiters, very unlikely and about as much risk as local sail boats, dingies, catamrans over running local breaks & flat water spots.
By example in WA, around 600-900 junior school kids are afforded the opporunity to learn to sail each summer through development programmes such as Tackers. Thats a huge boost to the confidence and life experience that they can apply to all areas of their life.
Olympics commercials aside, a big focus is on development programmes and funding is made available to this. It would be great to see more juniors learning to kite.
Bay. I agree. I'm not a fan of it in the Olympics.
But if the Olympics kills sports then we have no worry about the sport becoming more crowded and dangerous.
I think as the sport gets publicised, people get used to seeing it and it becomes less "cool", from an outsiders perspective. Then less people start the sport. Like what happened to windsurfing.
It will effect Europe more than here.
Look what happened last time it was proposed for the olympics, we got amazing development in race kites and boards.
Without that massive push the ozone edge (as example) might not have been the kite we have today.
Select to expand quotebjw said..
Bay. I agree. I'm not a fan of it in the Olympics.
But if the Olympics kills sports then we have no worry about the sport becoming more crowded and dangerous.
I think as the sport gets publicised, people get used to seeing it and it becomes less "cool", from an outsiders perspective. Then less people start the sport. Like what happened to windsurfing.
It will effect Europe more than here.
I think you two are spot on.
There's good reasons the International Skateboarding Organisation has tried to keep it out of the Olympics for such a long time, most the same issues could be raised for kiteboarding. I hope it never goes to Olympics, I'm sure racing at least will end up there though.
Podcast interview with Markus the Exc Sec of the IKA, some interesting discussion on the new olympic medal for sailing-kite racing.https://m.soundcloud.com/kiteracingnet/markusschwendtner
