Duotone Diversity Magazine No.02 2020

The mission then: Finding young talent and helping them develop their potential in kiting. No heats, no restrictions – we weren’t looking for anything particular other than someone who would grab our attention. In the end we chose two kids at 14 years of age, Lucas and Pedro. We kitted them out with a fresh setup of Vegas’, a Team Series, bar, boots, etc. Plus they were signed up for English lessons with a local tutor. The instructions were simple: Improve your riding skills and your English. Then you will be invited to continue in the program the following year, you will receive new gear and you can pass your old kit onto another grom who you personally think has potential. In 2019, a year after since the inception on the Grom Search initiative, the same crew was back in Cauipe for round #2 – to catch up with the kids and have a look for new additions to the program. On the search once again for kids under the age of 16, the level was, as expected, off the charts, with unknown shredders from all over Brazil. Close to 50 kids were waiting to throw down. The second we arrived our truck was stormed by the anxious youngsters. Boardbags flew open, tags were popped and loads of Vegas’ were on the water before you could blink an eye! From 6 years of age to a few questionable 16 year olds the lagoon was packed with grommets hungry to impress. Most of the International Freestyle team was on hand to discuss who to pick. Plus they were keen to help the kids out with instructions on the water, life pointers off the water and offered a buffet of drinks and food off the back of Mika Sol’s mother’s pick-up truck. Everybody kited their brains out and we all agreed we had never witnessed so much stoke in one spot at one time. The show went on for about 4 hours, it was absolutely manic on the water, everybody was sending it. Truly a vibe you had to be there to believe. After hours of detailed observation and interaction we had our sights set on one grom: Guillermo Costa or Gigi as his friends called him. He drove over 7 hours to come show the Duotone family what he had to offer and there was plenty on tap! He had more tricks than some of the riders on tour and with the GKA Freestyle World Tour coming to Cumbuco the following week we knew he could straight enter the competition with some solid heats in the qualifiers. The decision was unanimous amongst the team, Gigi was in. A few days later we sat down with local Duotone team rider Alex Neto, the two winners from last year, Lucas and Pedro, as well as Gigi, to talk about what we were looking for in them as our riders and ambassadors. Lucas had definitely worked on his 7’s and on his consistency in the last 12 months, as well as landing loads of new tricks. He proved at only 15 years of age he can compete with the best in the world by going through a few heats at the GKA stop in Cumbuco. He took the English lessons seriously and showed progress in his language skills as well. Quite unlike Pedro – he unfortunately kind of got the “too cool for school” attitude, lacked in improving his riding and English skills and also in general didn’t show the motivation on or off the water that we were looking for. So in the end we decided In 2018 Duotone hosted the first ever GromSearch at the world famous Cauipe Lagoon just outside of Cumbuco, Brazil, arguably the best freestyle spot on the planet and a definite stop on every pro riders yearly schedule. The recipe of consistent wind, flat water and the world’s best riders has pushed the local riding level through the roof. It’s not uncommon to see kids doing double handle passes before they reach teenager status and therefore this spot has be renowned for producing some of kiteboarding’smost talented riders. C O M P E T I T I O N to end the program for him, at least for now. We allowed him to keep his 2019 kites because we didn’t want to take everything away and invited him to continue in the english lessons and come out again for the 2020 Grom Search. It is really unfortunate but we have now set an example to all the groms that we are serious about seeing improvement … You can be almost 100% sure that the next grommets won’t make that same mistake and hopefully we will see Pedro back in the program in the coming years. So in the end we had two groms continuing the program: Lucas and Gigi were equipped with new Duotone gear and as Lucas was in the program for a year already he had the honor to choose who to pass his “old gear” on to. A local guy who already shreds received his 12m as well as a girl who is quite keen on spending more time kiting received a 9m to push her level. After that the young rippers were frothing on their new opportunities and visibly more eager than ever to get back on the water, take their riding to the next level and focused on completing their English studies. Seeing the impact of the program in such a short amount of time was pretty special. We can’t wait to be back next year to see how the little ones will have progressed over the year and to continue the Grom Search initiative. Copy Craig Cunningham Photos Tom Court, Laci Kobulsky P E O P L E 40 41 P E O P L E