World Tour PKRA changed in VKWC

New tour, big sponsor, new rules! Kitesurfing to a higher level? The 5 big changes in the new Kitesurfing World Cup set-up

• The competition ladder

First Trials, then Single and then finally the Double Elimination. This was the old system that often led to confusion and required a lot of time and therefore wind to run the whole event.
To get rid of the trials, there will be only two qualification events from now on. The first quali event will be the Tour opener of the new 2015 season, taking place in Dakhla, Morocco. The second one will take place mid season.
Everybody who's not already pre-qualified from last season is free to sign up and fight for one of the open slots for the first half of the 2015 season.
Also there will be some wildcards for local riders and pros that were previously injured.
To further speed up the contest and make it more interesting, the Singles and Doubles merge into the so called "Dingles".

In total 24 men and 12 women will compete. In the first round there are three riders a heat with the best jumping directly into round three.
The second and third ones have another go in round two to secure their space in round three too.
From there on it's a classic KO system. Easy and quick!

• The competition area

To make the event more interesting to watch the event organisation heavily reduced the competition zone. Tricks must be shown in a square marked by buoys (about 50-75 m apart in width and length), making it easier for the spectators and cameras to follow the riders while also improving the judging. New is also that only one rider at a time is allowed to show tricks in that area and interferences are penalized with heavy point reductions.
While shrinking the trick zone and introducing the 'one-at-a-time' rule are major changes, the heat length was only subject to a minor change: The first heat of the Dingles with three riders will be 10 minutes while the one-on-ones will keep their well known 7 minutes rhythm. We are curious if the riders can pop as many tricks as in the previous years or if there will be fewer but therefore more demanding tricks... Either way, heats will become more of a mind game as the riders will have to watch the tricks of their competitors in order to know when to enter the comp-zone.

• The judging criteria

Kite high, kite low? Clean landing vs. powerful pop. The judging of the tricks always felt very subjective and was hard to understand. Now it is broken down into three main points:

• Intensity (Counts 40 %): power and height – Reflects how big and powerful the trick is performed.
• Technical (Counts 40 %): technical difficulty and execution – Reflects the technical difficulty of the executed trick.
• Performance (Counts 20 %): smoothness, innovation and risk factor – Reflects the performance in terms of fluidity, originality and energy for each trick.

There will be five judges watching every heat, each contributing 20 % into the final score. Therefore two will watch the intensity of the trick, two will judge the technical performances of the riders and one will score the general performance of the competitors.

While the riders can show new tricks and prove their creativity, the categories of the tricks didn't change. We put together the official trick list here which hopefully gets extended by the end of the season with new tricks. Nevertheless, we are curious how the judging will effect this years riding style and trick repertoire and hope that it becomes easier for the audience to understand who won.

• The contest types

The enormous success of the Red Bull King of the Air proves it: Big Air is what get's the adrenalin of the crowds (and obviously of the riders) flowing! Therefore the PKRA decided to have Big Air contests at each spot that delivers the wind to go big!
Also we can expect to see more wave events in this year with contests at each tour stop spot that has incoming swell.
In the announcement there was hardly a word about Racing / Slalom, which leads to the assumption that there will be hardly any rule changes.

• The prize money and title

The prize money for this years tour was significantly increased. Now it becomes a big deal to win a tour stop with some serious prize money in the pot! There is a 35 % increase in Freestyle price money, 100 % increase in Wave and Slalom and 300% in Big Air compared to 2014.
The prize money for the first tour stop in Dahkla even doubled, from $47k to $90k. This will lead to greater competition and an increase in the level in general as the riders will become more determined to win. We are curious about the impact which this will have.

The 90,000 Dollar prize money in Dakhla will be distributed as following: $50k is planed for the freestyle event and $20k each for Big Air and Wave. For the freestyle part of the event, this will result in the following prize money:
$35,000 for men and $15,000 for women. This results in $7,000 for the male winner while even the riders who end up 9th (a place shared by 8 riders) will receive $840. Below you can see the key about the money.