History · 2018–today
Foil, and the Olympic
Games
Riding on a hydrofoil opened days that used to be too light to sail, and it is the discipline that carried kitesurfing to the Olympics.
- 2018–today
- 5 milestones
Riding on a hydrofoil turned days that were too light to sail into days you could race on, and it is the discipline that carried kitesurfing into the Olympic Games.
The two results below are the ones the whole timeline has been running towards. They are also the easiest in this sport to get wrong: World Sailing published a piece on 4 August 2024 headlined that Bontus and Aldridge had won the first ever Formula Kite races at the Olympics, and that was the opening series, not the medals.
The record
Foil, and the Olympic Games
14 October 2018
Kiteboarding raced at the Youth Olympic Games
Sofia Tomasoni and Deury Corniel won the kiteboarding golds on the closing day of the sailing programme at Buenos Aires 2018, raced at Club Nautico San Isidro. Both A Finals turned on penalty points. Poema Newland crossed the line first in the girls' final but carried two of them and dropped to joint second with Nina Font; Toni Vodisek took one in the boys' final and ended level with Christian Tio. Each fleet finished with two riders on silver. World Sailing listed the equipment as the IKA-Twin Tip Racing class, hull length max. 1710mm, kite area 5-19 m^2.
Why it mattered: This was where the multi-manufacturer equipment scheme got its first competitive run. Three weeks later, when World Sailing fixed the Paris 2024 kite criteria, the IKA's executive secretary pointed back at it: the Youth Games had used registered series production equipment, and it had worked.
Sources disagree
Does the 2018 Youth Olympic Games event count as kiteboarding at the Olympics?
Buenos Aires 2018 was kiteboarding's Olympic debut, and the class association and the magazines both call it that.
Does not establish: It does not make the Buenos Aires medals Olympic Games medals. The Youth Olympic Games are a separate IOC event for teenagers, and the riders there raced twin-tips, not the foil kit Paris 2024 used.
IKSURFMAG — It's Official: Kiteboarding in the Olympic Games Paris 2024 (Crystal Veness, 14 December 2020)International Kiteboarding Association — World Sailing AGM confirms Kiteboarding for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games (5 November 2018)
Kiteboarding's Olympic Games debut was Paris 2024, where World Sailing recorded the first Olympic gold medal in Formula Kite.
Does not establish: It does not deny that kiteboarding raced on an IOC programme in 2018. World Sailing ran the Buenos Aires event itself and reported it as Youth Olympic sailing.
World Sailing — Aldridge wins first ever Formula Kite Olympic Gold for Great Britain (8 August 2024)
What is not in doubt: Both sides agree on the facts: World Sailing ran a kiteboarding event on the Youth Olympic sailing programme in October 2018, and the first Olympic Games medals in the sport were awarded at Marseille in August 2024.
What would settle it: Nothing further. This is a naming question, not a factual one, and the two dates are both on the record.
Declared gaps in the record (1)
Research notes, kept in their original English.
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World Sailing — Italy and the Dominican Republic claim final Sailing golds at the Youth Olympic Games (14 October 2018)World Sailing — Buenos Aires 2018 Youth Olympic Games, Equipment: IKA-Twin Tip RacingIKSURFMAG — It's Official: Kiteboarding in the Olympic Games Paris 2024 (Crystal Veness, 14 December 2020)International Kiteboarding Association — World Sailing AGM confirms Kiteboarding for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games (5 November 2018)
4 November 2018
The Olympic kite was written down as a foiling board
World Sailing's Annual General Meeting in Sarasota closed the 2018 conference and confirmed the Paris 2024 slate. Mixed Kite was on it with its equipment still marked TBC, but the criteria agreed that week set the type: the event would be sailed on a foiling board with a RAM-Air (foil-kite). The IKA published the rest of the criteria the next day, among them kites of 7 to 21 m^2, four per rider per event, one hydrofoil system, and a target wind range of 5 to 40 knots. It said they described its own Formula Kite class.
Why it mattered: Foiling stopped being one way to race a kite and became the only way to race an Olympic one. The equipment trials that followed ended on 19 May 2019, when World Sailing's Council approved the IKA Formula Kite class for the event by forty votes to one with one abstention. From March 2022 only gear licensed by World Sailing was eligible, coming from seven hydrofoil manufacturers and four kite manufacturers.
The equipment an Olympic class rule has to describe: a mast, a fuselage, and two wings. Writing that down precisely is what turns a piece of gear into a racing class.
Uv59 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0CC BY-SA 4.0commons.wikimedia.orgDeclared gaps in the record (1)
Research notes, kept in their original English.
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World Sailing — Mixed Offshore Event added to Paris 2024 Olympic Sailing Competition (Daniel Smith, 4 November 2018; archived, live URL now 404)International Kiteboarding Association — World Sailing AGM confirms Kiteboarding for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games (5 November 2018)World Sailing — Paris 2024 Events confirmed at World Sailing Mid-Year Meeting (14 May 2018)Around the Rings (Infobae) — Paris 2024 decisions made at World Sailing's 2019 Mid-Year MeetingInternational Kiteboarding Association — World Sailing licenses Formula Kite equipment from 7 hydrofoil and 4 kite manufacturers for Paris 2024
10 June 2021
The IOC split the Olympic kite event in two
The IOC Executive Board met in Lausanne and approved Men's and Women's Kiteboarding (Formula Kite) for the Paris 2024 sailing programme. The two events replaced the mixed kite relay and the mixed offshore keelboat that World Sailing's members had voted for. World Sailing had been asked for alternatives after the IOC raised field of play security, cost and broadcast complexity around the offshore event, and its Council put the kite split forward as first choice, carrying the Equipment Committee's version with more than 94 per cent.
Why it mattered: Kiteboarding went from one mixed medal to two individual ones, and the racing calendar moved with it. The IKA said its own events for the rest of 2021 would switch to individual racing of the male and female fleets, while keeping the mixed relay in class competition from 2022. The two medals decided at Marseille in August 2024 are the ones this vote created.
Declared gaps in the record (1)
Research notes, kept in their original English.
- image
World Sailing — Men's and Women's Kiteboarding confirmed for Paris 2024 (10 June 2021)International Kiteboarding Association — World Sailing selects individual men's and women's kiteboarding events as preferred alternative for Paris 2024 (May 2021)International Kiteboarding Association — IOC confirms individual men's and women's kiteboarding medals for Paris 2024 (10 June 2021)US Sailing — IOC Approves Men's & Women's Kiteboarding for Paris 2024, Response from the US Sailing Team (10 June 2021)
8 August 2024
The first Olympic gold in kiteboarding
Ellie Aldridge won the Women's Formula Kite medal series at Marseille. World Sailing recorded it plainly: she "made history by becoming the first ever athlete to win an Olympic gold medal in Formula Kite". Lauriane Nolot took silver and Annelous Lammerts bronze.
Why it mattered: The women's fleet raced its medal series a day before the men's, so the first Olympic gold ever awarded in kiteboarding went to the women's event.
World Sailing — Aldridge wins first ever Formula Kite Olympic Gold for Great Britain (8 August 2024)Olympics.com — Paris 2024 sailing: all results, as Austria's Valentin Bontus takes men's kite gold
9 August 2024
Austria takes the men's kite title
Valentin Bontus won the Men's Formula Kite medal series a day later, in World Sailing's words outduelling Pianosi "to cross the line first and wrap up Austria's second sailing gold of Paris 2024". Toni Vodisek took silver, and Max Maeder's bronze was Singapore's first Olympic sailing medal.
Why it mattered: Forty years after a patent for an inflatable wing, the thing it made possible was being sailed for Olympic medals on an Olympic course.
World Sailing — Breathtaking Bontus storms to maiden Men's Kite gold (9 August 2024)Olympics.com — Paris 2024 sailing: all results, as Austria's Valentin Bontus takes men's kite gold
Questions
Common questions
When did kitesurfing become an Olympic sport?+
Kiteboarding made its Olympic debut at Paris 2024, raced as Formula Kite at Marseille. The first gold was decided in the women's medal series on 8 August 2024 and went to Ellie Aldridge of Great Britain; Valentin Bontus of Austria won the men's title the following day.
Sources for this page
Every dated claim above traces to the sources listed with it. These are the publications this page is built on.