Manureva judging more technical

Local and international kitesurfers are anxiously awaiting tonight’s prizegiving ceremony at the Arutanga wharf in Aitutaki.

They gave it their all in freestyle and course racing competitions off Aitutaki’s motu Maina Iti on Thursday, and adapted smoothly to a new contest format.

Last year, Manureva was still new. Judges were looking for ”the wow factor“ – they wanted riders to have fun and get a feel for what professional competitions are like. But this year, given Manureva was for the first time part of the KTA tour, international judges ran the show.

This year, judges were looking for technical, well-executed tricks.

Quality, not quantity.

Better tricks, not more tricks. They wanted high-standard tricks, technically difficult tricks – performed with power and height – and combination tricks incorporating multiple moves.

Judges were measuring the power and speed riders went into and out of tricks, and looking to see whether their kites were in the power zone – at 45 degrees – when they pulled off a trick.

The judges wanted variety, smoothness, style and innovation.

They wanted to see riders pulling tricks in both directions, and they didn’t want to see the same move twice.

”We’re looking for a variety of tricks – no repetition,“ judge Gael Bouchenafa said. ”Speed and power before tricks, during (the trick) and at landing are really important. We want clean tricks with power. Big boom, clean landing.“

Riders weren’t penalised for crashing – crashes are simply a wasted opportunity to complete a trick – but points were deducted from completed tricks for ‘buttchecks’, or compromised landings.

Each freestyle heat was allocated 10 minutes. At the start of the competition judges pulled names from a hat to determine which competitors would face off in which heats – the first freestyle heat pitted locals Pauro Arnold and Evaraima Koteka against Tauranga riders Stephen Nicholls and Glenn Bright, and the second was a face-off between locals Ina Nooroa, Teanaroa Worthington and Alfred Story and New Zealand’s fifth highest-ranked rider Olly Brunton.

Today, as riders await results, they will be visiting local schools and donating gear to the local kitesurfing community.

A night market has been organised to start from 6pm at the Arutanga wharf, and the prizegiving is scheduled for around 7pm.

Cook Islands News thanks Air Rarotonga for making competition coverage possible.