Young & Lengwiler rise, Maeder falls
 
Day four of the Formula Kite World Championships in Quartu Sant’Elena, Sardinia, saw a battle between the delicate sea breeze and the boisterous Mistral blowing from higher in the sky. You could see the effect of the unstable, chaotic wind conditions on the fleet. Consistency eluded almost everybody, both in the women’s fleet and in the first day of gold fleet racing for the top 25 men.

Even the usually metronomic Max Maeder could not hold a good set of results together. The Singaporean tumbled from first to fourth place after a bruising day on the water. Instead it’s Riccardo Pianosi who regains the yellow bib, the Italian now sitting eight points clear of Gian Stragiotti, the young Swiss rider who is up to second place overall, on equal points with Toni Vodisek of Slovenia in third.

BIG TANGLE, BENT MAST, LUCKY BULLET 

Stragiotti thought his day was falling apart at the point where he caused a multiple pile-up at the leeward gate in the second race. “I was full speed, just push full gas, no holding back. On the first downwind, I had a super-close kite call with Max. I crashed, I dropped and I made a big mess at the downwind mark. It was horrible.” 

Stragiotti duly retired from that race, knowing he was at fault. But he still had to get himself ready and repaired for the next race. “I went back to the beach and saw there was a little bend on my foil. I was like, ‘I need to change my mast.’ But the start was already coming up, so I said I'll take the 15 [square metre kite]. And I went out for the second race and managed to pull off a bullet, which I'm really happy with. I think the bend on the mast even helped a bit.”

It also helped Stragiotti that the leader until the very last turning mark - Czech rider Vojtech Koska - lost his way towards the finish. “I was leading the whole race until the last moment. I had forgotten that the women were sailing a different course from us today, so I turned to go for the wrong mark and Gian saw that our mark was a little bit further away and he carried on in the right direction and won the race. I was like, ‘No! Why!’, but still second place is fine. Overall it was a good day.” Koska moves up to fifth overall and in good contention for one of the eight spots for the medal series final this Sunday.

NEW WOMEN WINNERS

Big movers in the women’s fleet were Britain’s Lily Young and Switzerland’s Elena Lengwiler who moved up to third and fourth overall, Kampman and Nolot still out in front. Lengwiler said she was finally remembering how to race again. “I haven’t done much since the Olympics last year and it has taken me some time to get back to a good rhythm. I hope we get some great races tomorrow.”

A race win and some other good scores for Derin Atakan has moved the Turkish rider up into eighth overall, also giving the youth rider good reason to believe she can make it into the medal series competition on Sunday. “I listened to my coach today,” she laughed. “He was telling me what to focus on - to get a good clean start - and it worked!”