Kiteboarding riders united( KRU) the union of the professional kiteboarders will run their own World tour!
After 1 year of lots of uncertainties, 2 months of investigations, intense negotiations and meetings with all the stakeholders of the sport.
KRU has decided to run their own World tour, 40 out of 60 KRU members voted to run a tour organized by the riders without WKT or IKA.
KRU is not the first sports union who has made this step, the WSL (World Surf League) were confronted with similar challenges in the past. The aim is to bring the sport to the next level. A few months ago the board of KRU: Youri Zoon, Annelous Lammerts, Alex Pastor and Liam Whaley pointed out D. Galiart as their interim CEO. Galiart’s background is: former professional athlete and owner of a franchise organization. This is how the tour will be run, like a franchise. KRU is a non-profit organization and all the profit will be used to make a better and more professional tour! The name of the tour will be World Kiteboarding League, supported by COP (Clean Ocean Project). KRU gave their commercial rights for 2016 to this charity fund.
2016 will be a transition year where little steps in the right direction will be made. The aims for 2017 are reasonable and more than doable. The results of the IKA events El Gouna(Egypt) and Leucate( France) will be counted towards the World Kiteboarding League overall ranking and title.
World Kiteboarding league will respect the results of last years VKWC tour.
The upcoming event in Leucate (France) will be run by IKA as KRU agreed with the local event organizer.
KRU aims for 2017
- No expenses for all the qualified riders.
- Doing something back for the ocean, start (2016)
- Bringing the sport to a bigger audience
- Embrace a tour sponsor
- High quality live-stream
- Create a platform for the next generation
- Start events in the US
- Create a tour with only winners
2016 competition schedule
Negotiations:
Dakhla 17 till 23 June 2016, Egypt 7 till 14 July 2016 Germany 26 August until 4 September 2016,Spain 31 July till 6 August 2016 Cabarete Dominican Republic 22 till 30 July 2016
Options: Brazil
The www.worldkiteboardingleague.com is on construction, end of May we go live
