Pégourié recovers from tangle to lead the girls

Warm winds of 8 to 16 knots in Torregrande, Sardinia
Héloïse Pégourié leads girl’s fleet with three wins from four
Runaway winners from China and Italy in boys’ groups

After four races in warm winds of 8 to 16 knots, some clear patterns are already beginning to emerge in the three world-class kitefoiling contests taking place in Torregrande, Sardinia.

CHINA AND ITALY ON FIRE

For the under 21 year olds, the Formula Kite Youth European Championship is one of the biggest events of the season. For qualifying, the boys are split into yellow and blue divisions, and there were two clear winners from each group. Four straight wins for Qibin Huang of China, four straight wins for Riccardo Pianosi of Italy.

Fighting hard with Pianosi in yellow group was Lucas Fonseca from Brazil. “Last year I was 20th in the Youth World Championship here in Torregrande,” said Fonseca. “I had a lot of work to do to make improvements and today I feel all the work I have done is paying off.

“I made a few mistakes, I had a crash when I was pushing hard to try to win one race. I was side by side with Riccardo in another race and made a small mistake in the gybe when I let the tip of my kite touch the water. These are the things I still have to work on, but I feel I am going in the right direction.”

GOOD RECOVERY BY PÉGOURIÉ

Compared with the runaway winners in the boys’ fleet, things weren’t quite so cut and dried in the girls’ fleet. In the first heat, two top French riders were neck and neck with less than 100 metres to the finish. But a tangle of kites brought Héloïse Pégourié and Lysa Caval crashing to the water. Pégourié limped across the line in 14th while Caval didn’t manage to finish. Another rider from the strong French squad, Chloé Revil, went on to win the opening heat.

However, for the next three races Pégourié avoided the tangles and broke clear to take three back-to-back victories. This puts the French rider in the lead, four points ahead of youth world champion Julia Damasiewicz from Poland.

For Thursday, the 91 riders from 22 countries and four continents will look to complete four more high-adrenalin races on the glittering Gulf of Oristano.

RESULTS (top 3 after 4 races)

Youth Men

1=	CHN	Qibin Huang	4p
1=	ITA	Riccardo Pianosi	4p
3	CZE	Vojtech Koska	8p

Youth Women

1	FRA	Heloise Pegourie	3p
2	FRA	Julia Damasiewicz	7p
3	FRA	Chloe Revil	8p