Kevin Langeree Crowned Red Bull King of the Air in Cape Town

The world’s kiteboarding elite and spectators alike gathered at Cape Town’s Big Bay where Kevin Langeree kited his heart out to take the title of the 2014 Red Bull King of the Air.

For the second year in a row, Cape Town’s Big Bay hosted 24 of the world’s best kiteboarders as they went head-to-head in a unique ‘flag out’ competition format in South Africa. It all came down to the final in which Dutchman Kevin Langeree managed to edge out his compatriots Ruben Lenten (second) and Steven Akkersdijk (third) to become the Red Bull King of the Air 2014 champion in front of a 12 000-strong crowd.

“The conditions picked up during the day and I couldn’t have hoped for anything better! The final was definitely tough and every one of us was so close to winning. I definitely had my best heat of the day in the final. This is the third Red Bull King of the Air I’ve competed in and was a title that I didn’t have yet so I was hungry for it. I’m so stoked!”

Judged on height, creativity and style, the participants’ manoeuvres were judged by Alex Vliege (NED), William Bogaards (NED), Greg Thijsse (RSA), Arkadiusz Jerzelkowski (POL), Reinier Korstanje (NED), Ralf Bachsuster (GER) who had their work cut out for them.

An innovative tool available to the judges was Xensr technology. The application measures the height, speed, airtime, gravity loading, location and the 3D motion of the athlete with all data captured at 400 times a second and is accurate to within 3mm, as soon as they land a jump. All jump data is immediately relayed to the judges and the live stream. Frenchman Tom Herbert recorded the highest jump of the day – a lofty 25.04m.

Head judge Alex Vliege was pleased with how the event played out in the end:

“What an epic day! We had the best riders in the world here today with Cape Town and Mother Nature delivering great conditions. We finally got what we were waiting for. Kevin was completely deserving of the title – he did the same moves as the others plus more, with variation and went higher than the others. “

Blouberg local Andries Fourie was the highest placed South African in 4th place and landed the second highest jump of the day at 23.37m.