When New Zealand’s Justina Kitchen competes in the kite foil competition at the Paris Olympics next month, the 35-year-old will compete wearing an impact vest, a hook knife and a helmet.
Safety equipment is a must for kite winging, a sport making its Olympic debut. It is considered the fastest class of sailing in which competitors are strapped to a large kite and can often reach speeds of 48 km/h (30 mph) on a board on a thin foil that appears to hover above the water. .
However, “it’s very peaceful here,” said Kitching, who was taking a break from training at the Marseille marina in southern France, where the sailing competition is held.
“You move so fast, but you fly above everything.”
The road to the Olympics in the kitchen is anything but quick. She missed out on selection for the 2012 London Olympics in windsurfing. Kitching, 29, took up foil kiting ahead of the 2016 Rio Olympics after having two children, but the sport was excluded from competition in favor of windsurfing. The Kite Foil Competition in Tokyo 2021 has been snubbed again.
Kitchen grew up with his father, Rex Seller, an Olympic medalist and legendary New Zealand sailor. So when kite foil was announced as an Olympic sport in Paris, it seemed like destiny, part of a broader strategy to attract younger audiences through recreational (albeit dangerous) sports including skateboarding and surfing. Gender equality is another strategy, with the Paris Regatta having a balanced mix of male and female participants.
“Most people understand that it has to be done at the right place and at the right time,” Kitchen said. “[The Olympics] It only happens every four years and you have to be lucky, healthy, injury-free, the right level and, if you’re in a two-handed boat, the right company.
That good fortune evaporated last September when Kitching suffered an epic accident before the European Championships, rupturing her anterior cruciate ligament and medial collateral ligament, a career-ending event for some athletes. Career knee injury. Days after the accident, she began using electrical stimulation to slow muscle loss. Avoid substituting surgery for intense physical therapy to speed recovery. Four months later, the kitchen was back to kite foil.
“The idea is that if there’s a small opportunity or a glimmer of hope, I’m going to take a chance and make it work,” Kitching said.
“Everything I’ve done so far has been impossible and I have the same attitude towards injuries.”
Kitesurfing requires maneuvering around a set route, with speed and tactics largely determining the winner. Unlike other Olympic sports, where the track or pool is the same for every race, sailing has a variety of variables, from wind speed to wave crashing to a clump of seaweed catching a competitor instead of Foil for another contestant.
“You can never control it – you just deal with what nature throws at you,” said Mark Orams, a professor of marine recreation and tourism at Auckland University of Technology and a sailor.
Navigation technology was also changing rapidly. The 2021 Tokyo Regatta features foil racing. In Paris, 5 of the 10 classes in Olympic sailing are foil events. Equipment designs and materials at each level continue to improve to accommodate dial speeds.
The physics of kite foils means heavier competitors can exert more force on the kite board and foil, thereby increasing their speed. Putting on weight—whether through muscle or fat or both—is part of competition preparation. Kitchen’s coach Antonio Cozzolino said the ideal weight for a female kite player is 70-80 kg. He is taking a 12-month break from his job as a litigator to support her Olympic campaign.
For new kite athletes, the need to gain weight “is the biggest barrier to entry,” Cozzolino said. Equipment is also expensive, with foils, boards, straps and kites all costing thousands of dollars.
“Spectators and sailors alike are in awe of the sport, but I do think it’s hard to say what direction it’s going to take,” Cozzolino said of what the Olympics will mean for foil kiting.
As for Kitching, she was considered to have no chance of winning a medal. She was up against younger competitors such as Australia’s Breyana Whitehead and Daniela Moroz from the United States. Both are 23 years old.
But Kitching’s father won Olympic gold and silver medals in his 30s, which is not unheard of in sailing.
“There’s no reason why I can’t compete for another ten years,” Kitchen said.
