World Sailing: A 'World Championship' with no sailors, sailboats, sails, or race courses has
AKYAKA, TURKEY (#1100) – The lead news item this weekend on the World Sailing website is an eye-opener for many. It details the Day 3 (Friday) results at the World Kiteboarding Championships. An excerpt from that article:
The first Semi-final for the Men was Heat 17, where Adeuri Corniel from the Dominican Republic was unstoppable. He had already made it clear from Day one that he was aiming for the final, and he definitely proved his point today. He stomped every single trick attempt, and was beyond happy to gain his hard-earned spot in Sunday's final. The battle for second place was not an easy one, as Zoon, Chabloz and Teixeira gave it all they could. Maxime Chabloz, the youngest rider in the heat, went massive on his 5th trick attempt, but unfortunately landed too close to the beach and ended up jumping over spectators, saving himself and others from injury. The judges counted the attempt as a crash, but he did not let that deter him. He went for a Slim7 scoring 8.93 points and clinched the second spot in the finals, a huge result for this young competitor. Teixeira narrowly missed out after riding incredibly well, and sadly him and Zoon were eliminated from the competition despite their maximum effort. The last semi-final of the day was Heat 18, where Carlos Mario, Current World Champion, opened up with a perfect Heart Attack 7, scoring 10. What a start to the heat! He followed it up with a KGB7, landing close to the beach but managing to maintain control. He continued to ride well even though he was suffering a bit due to an injury to his arm, but still cleared his way into the final. The young Valentin Rodriguez from Colombia will be joining him, after going for some big tricks that included a massive Heart Attack 7 scoring 9.93. It was a disappointment for Alex Pastor, who looked like he was on the path to the finals. However he and Spiessberger could not quite land the tricks they were aiming for, and did not make through.
Photos (above) courtesy of the World Kiteboarding Championship website that has additional details of this "world championship" sanctioned by World Sailing.
Yesterday (Saturday) was the "small finals" (the consolation brackets, aka "petit final") and main finals for both men and women. The heats, riders, boards, kites and tricks were nicely livestreamed to Facebook, despite a delay after the power to the entire venue reportedly went out. You can watch a replay of that livestream on YouTube here....
Strangely, today (Sunday) "World Sailing TV" streamed an edited version of the original Saturday livestream (above). World Sailing edited out footage of the commentators. Was it the Quicksilver branding on their shirts, or something else that WS TV did not want to show? Some of the embedded ads in the original stream were also edited out, and World Sailing added their own logo ("bug") in the lower right corner of Sunday's faux livestream.
Footage of the commentators was edited out of the video streamed by World Sailing TV today (Sunday), though their voices remained. The World Sailing video was actually a replay of yesterday's livestream by the WKC organizers.