Kiteboarding pro event set for Bermuda

Bermuda is primed to become a hotspot in the world’s professional kiteboarding scene.

Markus Schwendtner, CEO of the International Kiteboarding Association, visited the island early this week and was impressed with its potential. 

He plans to host an annual pro event on the island every spring featuring several different races, including a race around the island, which has not been done in Bermuda before and has the potential to be a huge draw for international kiteboarders. 

Schwendtner is confident that the world’s best will be eager to come to Bermuda, especially once there is an around-the-island record established for people to break. 

He told the Bermuda Sun: “The around-the-island race is a thing we have established in a couple of other locations, where there’s a record that you can beat each year.

“It becomes a big deal annually for people to go there because they want to beat the record or be a part of the race as it grows. 

“For example, the most famous long-distance race is in the south of France.

“It started with a handful of people racing from one town to the other and back and it ended up with around 1,000 people at the starting line. 

“Kiteboarders are crazy, they want to race everywhere. People travel from all over the world to Australia for a one-day race.”

Schwendtner was impressed with Bermuda and its potential to host pro kiteboarding events: “We went pretty much all around the island and I was quite impressed with what we found, the tropical climate and flowers and plants and trees and European-style buildings were quite impressive.”

Bermudian kiteboarding event organizer Karl Outerbridge was instrumental in putting this together and is excited about the potential an event like this holds for Bermuda, saying: “Kiteboarding presents the vehicle to bring sailing, even if it’s just for one day, to the masses. 

“We are looking to host it every year during the month of March/spring break. It will be good for the hotels, and there’s a good bit of media coverage that comes along with it, so it will be good exposure for the island.

“With kiteboarding being pushed towards becoming an Olympic sport, if we get more Bermudians exposed to it and pushed toward it, we have potential to even have a few Olympians in the future.”

Outerbridge has been working closely with the Tourism Board as he finalizes plans for the event next spring.

“Everyone is very pumped up and excited about it. This is something that could be potentially very big for Bermuda.” n