This year’s STORMs were in the spirit of squeeze the most out of it, winter is fickle, no one knows if there will be any more or not. But it was done and according to the ovations of the leading Czech competitors it was very good. A short course with 4 turning points – “upwind”, crosswind, and two “downwind” crosses to the finish. It was 2 laps, one race was less than 4 minutes for the fastest! There were 6 very nice races, full of personal battles. There were 4 riders fighting for the top positions at the front, going through each gate almost body to body. A great show for the fans and the judges. A total of 14 competitors on the track.

SNOWKITE STORMY – a scramble with results

When the referees screw up the results. An interesting thing happened. Martin Pribyl, who was in 3rd place overall in the “race” discipline, . . … and let’s face it, knocked Jan Konigsmark down with his kite and tangled him up very, very close to the finish line of Race 2. Jan should have won this race, but he finished third due to an incident that was not his fault. Martin didn’t finish at all, but he still missed this race. It was only because of this incident that Martin would have been ahead of Jan in the overall results. He would have been second and Jan third (see results table). In terms of fairness and logic, the chief referee intervened here and awarded Martin 3 penalty points to make the overall standings as if the incident had practically not happened.

SNOWKITE STORMY – BIGAIR

The “bigair” discipline then went with fewer participants for obvious reasons. There was a strong and gusty wind, after all the winner of the “race” discipline Petr Petráš won with a kite of 8qm !!! (GIN Spirit) and after all flying up to 5 meters or more is not for everyone in gusty and strong winds. Still, the bigair was a beautiful spectacle and a great day of flying! Unbelievable height of Martin Pribyl with his inflatable 10qm Duotone kite, late but crushing entry of Lukáš Bartůšek with his 8qm KiteTech machine and grandiose hangtime in the form of Martin Lafek with his GIN Boom 10qm race kite. These were incredible “jumps” and ultimate bigair discipline, where adrenaline was shooting in all directions.

During the day it was rather foggy, the temperature was above zero and the snow was disappearing right before our eyes. At the end of the day it was more like riding on wet grass, sometimes it rained. Challenging conditions, but a beautiful race, a great spectacle for the fans.

Thank you to all participants, spectators, partners of the event and pension U Zlatého Jelena. Next year it will be big again!

We’re looking forward to it, Lafoun.