Kites flying, music pumping, sun shining, breeze blowing – Motu Maina Iti was the stuff of every kitesurfer’s dreams yesterday.

Riders would have welcomed some heavier winds – yesterday was too light to even put the ramp in the water – but they were more than content to tear up Aitutaki lagoon for a crowd of spectators and three Kite Tour Asia (KTA) judges.

Manureva, the fledgling competition that this year made it onto the KTA, kicked off at 7am yesterday with a turou on the Aitutaki mainland. Local and international riders piled into water taxis and arrived to a gusty Maina Iti, where they pumped kites and laid out lines in anticipation of the freestyle and course racing events.

Judges Stephan Hertig, Gael Bouchenafa and Willy Kerr gave a 45-minute race briefing, using a whiteboard covered in pages of rules as backup. Local riders quickly learned that this year was a different game altogether – more professional, more organised, stricter.

The crowds were bigger, the music was louder and a more kites dotted the horizon.

”It was just a better set-up – the music, the crowd,“ local rider Evaraima Koteka said. ”It was good wind and the turnout of competitors and supporters was (better).“

He also said he found meeting freestyle judging criteria more challenging this year.

Judges were looking for technical tricks – well-executed, clean, powerful and concise. They wanted amplitude, energy, power, and the riders did their best to bring all three.

First up in the freestyle category were locals Pauro Arnold and Koteka, taking on Tauranga riders Stephen Nicholls and Glenn Bright.

For 10 minutes the contenders entertained the crowd gathered on the beach, pulling off the tricks they’d mastered and trying to squeeze in some of those they hadn’t.

A confident and grinning Arnold beat out Koteka for the local top spot, and 18-year-old Tauranga kiter Nicholls delivered a clean performance to top Bright.

Even though Nicholls was a late entry – he had booked a two-month holiday to Aitutaki and it just so happened he was there during Manureva, so he signed up – he seemed a crowd favourite.

The second group of boys to take to the lagoon comprised local kiters Ina Nooroa, Teanaroa ‘Paka’ Worthington and Alfred Story, taking on New Zealand’s fifth-best kitesurfer Olly Brunton.

The siren sounded. The red flag went up. And on green, the boys had 10 minutes to outdo each other and the previous heat’s competitors.

Judges awarded the winning spots to Nooroa and Brunton, both returning competitors.

The last freestyle competitors were women – Alice Child from Australia, Rebecca Taggart from New Zealand and local kite instructor Brynn Acheson – who gave the boys a run for their money.

Acheson, who competed last year as well, said this year was much fairer for women.

She said it was a more professional contest, governed by clear-cut rules, and that this year she was pleased to see that women had the same amount of time to compete in the freestyle category as did men.

By yesterday afternoon judges had chosen their top three, but they won’t announce names until Friday night’s prizegiving ceremony. A few standout tricks – back-to-blinds, double S-bends, low mobes and back-to-wrapts – most impressed race director Stephan Hertig, but he’s not giving away anything else. Riders will just have to wait until Friday.

Cook Islands News coverage of the kitesurfing competition was made possible by Air Rarotonga’s Manureva sponsorship.

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