Capucine Delannoy Wins World’s Biggest Kite-Surf Event
(Sylt) In the end, there was no way around the top favorite of the Defender GKA Kite-Surf World Cup Sylt. The only 17-year-old Frenchwoman Capucine Delannoy defended her title on the North Sea island and won at Brandenburger Beach in Westerland. Already in 2021, at the last edition of the Kite-Surf event on Sylt, the then 15-year-old was able to claim the victory, and this year she had arrived as the reigning world champion.
Due to the weather forecast, the competition started in the early morning hours and was held in the Strapless Freestyle discipline. In not easy conditions for the riders, kites up to 15 meters in size were used. Capucine Delannoy proved to have a particularly good feel for the conditions and set an exclamation point directly in the fifth round with the highest score of the competition. In the semi-final she met her compatriot Zoe Bazile before the co-favorite Camille Losserand from Switzerland waited in the final. Losserand, who is on Sylt for the first time, was initially in the lead and led in the ranking, before the duel had to be briefly interrupted due to the weather. At the restart, Capucine Delannoy then had the momentum back on her side and pulled past the Swiss woman in terms of points. The 17-year-old was overjoyed and emotional after her victory at the world’s largest Kite-Surf event: “It’s been a while since I felt so good on the water. The last few months have been very challenging, but I’ve worked hard to come back here like this. It’s the best feeling ever to win here today!”
With her victory at the Defender GKA Kite-Surf World Cup on Sylt, Delannoy moves to the top of the World Cup standings of the Qatar Airways GKA Kite World Tour and is thus one step closer to defending her world title.
The German starters Sonja Bunte and Susanne Schwarztrauber reached the quarter-finals of the event.