Dominique

Yesterday was the first day of the kb4k competition, held in Cabarete, Dominican Republic, at the Laurel Eastman Kiteschool. The event started off on Thursday night, with the opening dinner (at the restaurant Pitu). It was a fun dinner, lots if people around for the registration and the first prizes draw. It was nice to see everyone getting excited about the coming week end!

On Friday, the event started around 1PM, with the riders meeting, explaining the rules and the way the races were going to be done that day. The women started: I was happy to find out that I was in the second heat, so I had a few minutes to do a couple tacks, to calm down (!) and also to check the power I had: I’m glad I did! I first went out on my 9m 2010 Naish Helix, but then switched to the 12m, even if I was going to be overpowered: I preferred having a lot of power to have as much speed as possible! So I got ready on the beach, being pretty proud to be there (despite the overexcitement!), just about to ride on my new kites, and proudly wearing my REAL riding jersey!

I won my first heat, first place, and then got to the second heat. The start got a little chaotic, but I made it out, passing the girl in front of me and going faster than I’ve ever been! When I saw an opening to leave the beach beside her, I just decided to go for it! I caught up with the one that was already out, had to tack back and forth a few times to get upwind enough to pass the buoy, and at that point, things got pretty tight! At least, I was then on against one with my friend Debbie, whom I see every day on the beach, so we both had fun trying to pass each other. I realized afterward that I could have been way more aggressive and not as nice to her, but when ishe’s a friend…! We ended up arriving almost at the same time on the beach, but I was the first one to set foot on the beach, so I won!!!

Quite a day of adrenaline rush! I remember having my knees shaking as I was on the water… Now I can just hope that the rest of the week end will be as good as it started and I will pray the wind gods to participate to our event too!!

Other results to come!

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 13th, 2010 at 7:31 am and is filed under Competition, Dominican Republic, Kiteboarding. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.