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The first day of action took place under a clear sky with 17 to 20 knots of wind and temperatures of 15°C.
Kicking off the competition were the wave riders who ran the entire day's event. The competition ladder for the wave riding is a dingle format where the first round winners will automatically advance to the third round while the 2nd and 3rd place finishers of the first round would compete in a second round elimination. The winner from the second round will then advance to the third round and compete with the 1st place winners of the first round. From there, the competition went man on man and the winner advanced to the next round while the loser will be out of the game.
In the first round elimination, Fernando Paraud (Best, PER), Sky Solbach (North, USA), Kevin Langeree (Naish, NED), Eduardo Carrad (No Stress, BRA), Jeremy Eloy (North, FRA), Guilly Brandao (Mormaii, BRA), Roberto Nascimiento (Best, BRA), and Etienne Lhote (Fone, FRA) all defeated their respective competitors and advanced to the third round. This same batch of winners also emerged victorious in the third round with the exception of Lhote who lost to Dreu Beavis (North, AUS).
In round number four, Fenando Paraud defeated Solbach while Langeree defeated Carrad in the 17th heat runs. Eloy lost to Brandao and Beavis was defeated by Nascimiento in the 18th heats.
Race Director Eric Troostheide decided to have a 10-minute break immediately following the semi-finals before running the finals.
It was a Langeree-Brandao fight in the finals while Paraud met Beavis for the third podium spot. Although the wave competition was completed, the results will not be released until Saturday for the awarding ceremony. The judging criteria's were basically a point system with the best two waves during a heat which counted to their overall score. The competitor with the best waves selection and ability to ride them would score the highest. The day wrapped up at around 6:00 pm with dying winds and waves.
On the 2nd day the sky was cloudy to overcast in the morning but the clouds disappeared during the freestyle elimination rounds. The wind in the morning was mostly light,
averaging only 8 knots. Therefore the freestyle elimination was postponed untill 11:30 when wind had become stronger and stabilized at a good level for fantastic kiteboarding action:It was a fast-paced, action-packed second day as the freestyle single eliminations were completed for both the men and the women's division. Andy Yates (Slingshot, AUS) turned up the heat with an easy win over Manuel Bustos (Morph, ARG) in heat #2b but bowed down to PKRA's World Number 3 Alvaro Onieva (Best, ESP) in the 9th heat. Cayque Aquino (Naish, BRA) defeated local rider Jose Tomas Valenzuela (North, CHI) in their 8th heat match-up with the Brazilian rider winning over with a higher technical difficulty score and more trick variation.
Sebastien Garat (RRD, France) overtook
North's Tom Court (GBR) in the 9th heat via technical difficulty. Garat then defeated Onieva in the 13th
heat with more varied tricks.
Tom Hebert (Airush, New Caledonia) is doing absolutely fantastic this year, currently ranking number 6 in the PKRA and has been in all the Tour stops this year. He defeated Austria's Michael Schitzhofer (JN Kites) in heat #10 with a display of greater technical riding skills, coupled with a greater height advantage and switch variety. He then faced current Tour title challenger Kevin Langeree (Naish, NED) in the 13th heat, which spelled bad news for Hebert. Langeree won over Hebert with a much higher technical difficulty rating and landed more varied tricks. The Dutch rider later defeated Garat to advance into the finals.
Despite Alex Pastor (Naish, ESP) crashing heavily and ruining his kite in heat #11b, he already had enough moves landed to take the win over Madison Van Heurck (Naish, USVI). Pastor won with better executed moves and a higher technical riding score.
Heat #14 was a fight for the fourth in the total rankings between Mikael Blomvall (Nobile, SWE) and Pastor. Blomvall took the win with a 3-2 decision, claiming 4th overall for now. Blomvall landed more technical moves and had more variety while Pastor went for the bigger moves but butt-checked a lot on his landings.
An all-fired up Aaron Hadlow (Flexifoil, GBR) took an easy 15th heat win over Blomvall who had a bad heat, crashing several moves. Blomvall settled for third place overall by defeating Garat for the last podium .
The final heat was, again, between Langeree and Hadlow. Claiming the world championship title, Hadlow landed took the win with more switch variety and a lower kite position on top of riding with more power. Langeree went bigger in his moves but had his kite a bit higher and lacked the switch variety. This win over his fiercest rival on the tour this year eventually gave Hadlow his 5th consecutive world championship title in Freestyle Kiteboarding.
The ladies had their equal share of extreme kiteboarding action. Elena Pitoulis (North, GRE) won her heat by defeating Alexandra Maslova (North, RUS) in heat #6 with a 3-2 decision but lost to Gisela Pulido (Slingshot, ESP) in the 7th heat.
Bruna
Kajiya (Best, BRA), winning with air pass moves defeated Susi Mai
(Cabrinha, GER) in heat #7a winning with a much higher technical
rating.
In the fight for third place overall, Mai emerged victorious over Pitoulis. Mai won via technical difficulty. The final heat also had Gisela waving to the crowd from the top podium position, beating Bruna Kajiya (Best, BRA) with higher technical riding level and cleaner landings. Congratulations to Gisela Pulido for winning the 2008 PKRA World Championship Title, her 2nd in a row and at the age of 14.