"The International Kiteboarding Association (IKA) and the Kiteboard Pro World Tour (KPWT) today announced that they have entered a long term cooperation. All events of the KPWT tour will be sanctioned by the IKA and count towards the first officially ISAF sanctioned world championship title.
“This agreement launches a new era of kiteboarding – a significant step forward in the development of the sport in general and unified rules and rankings in particular” said Markus Schwendtner, Executive Secretary of the IKA, which has recently become an ISAF international class.
“We are happy to work together with the KPWT, the first professional kiteboarding tour, and especially with Frederic Gravoille, who brought up competition kiteboarding about ten years ago.” Schwendtner continues.
“Our organizations complement each other in a perfect way, with our experience over the past years and the IKAs connection to the international sailing community we are sure to be able to properly develop both rules and disciplines, lift kiteboarding to the next level and gain reputation. We have been working on building up kiteboarding since 1998, and it is a great opportunity for us to become our tour officially sanctioned by IKA and ISAF. This is a big step for kiteboarding and the KPWT, 2009 will see a very exciting series for the World Championship Title,” Frederic Gravoille, tour manager of the KPWT states.
The agreement includes the sanction of the KPWT tour events as well as the development of world wide unifed rules and ranking systems. The IKAs intention is to unify the international kiteboarding community under the well respected umbrella of the International Sailing Federation (ISAF), which officially approved a kiteboarding world championship title for the first time in 2009.
Details about the upcoming rules and ranking system for 2009 are expected to be published in the next weeks, as well as the schedule for the 2009 world cup."
[Source: IKA]
