King of the Air review

For decades, Duotone’s designers, riders and engineers make the final round of R&D in the Mother City of Cape Town. Not only is it one of the world’s finest cosmopolitan cities, its natural surroundings make it a world-class, sporting playground.

Famous for the roaring South-Easter winds of the Cape Doctor and spots that deliver to all disciplines, it fuels the industry with adrenaline, the people behind Duotone with inspiration and sets the tone for future innovations.

Blouberg is Cape Town’s kiteboarding hot spot. 20 minutes out of town up the West Coast, you will find a trendy, growing community of young professionals looking to get their daily dopamine. It also hosts the exclusive RED BULL King of the Air each year, attracting adrenaline junkies and storm chasers from around the world.

Few events around the world have the power to unify the industry and together. Duotone welcomed the new decade with fresh World Champions and kites for huge jumps, powerful loops and technical performance never seen before.

The 2020 event brought a new format; “All the changes are aimed at giving a wider range of riders – both pro and amateur – a shot at competing, extreme Big Air kiteboarding has grown into a fully-fledged discipline globally, which, after seven events, gives us the opportunity to offer something fresh in terms of format,” Sportive Director, Sergio Cantagalli.

Duotone Kiteboarding King of the Air 2020

We take a look at how team riders Aaron Hadlow and Airton Cozzolino represented the progression of the event as kings in their own disciplines.

Duotone Kiteboarding King of the Air 2020 Airton Cozzolino

Airton Cozzolino4 x Kite-Surf World Champion and the newest groundbreaking entry for the King Of The Air. Making history as the first ever rider to enter a big air event Strapless he held his own against the world’s best in winds over 35 knots and displaying tricks like the Boogie Loop, which has never been seen before without an attachment to the board.

Riding the purpose driven wave design, the Neo, Airton showed how it has witch-like abilities to create lift, control through jumps, effortless loops and smooth landings.

With Airton working side by side with the shapers of the boards, he’s pushed the construction and performance to the limits, riding the Pro Voke.In the event, the deck reinforcements and impact resistant materials mean that strapless freestyle, big air and pure wave riding is a real possibility with our production models.

Aaron Hadlow is a rider that has always pushed the extremes in freestyle, wakestyle and in this case big air. He takes no prisoners, especially with his equipment. The tools of his trade are the foundations on which his legendary performance is based. This year at the KOTA he again proved that is talent for competition and ability to adapt to adverse conditions set him apart from the rest. Sharing the podium in 3rd place, it was the 2020 Dice that took him there.

This season we saw a big shift away from boots, with athletes sliding back into the Entityfootstraps. This is largely due to the increased need to be diverse with tricks like board offs and kite loop board offs - moves that have seen riders win competitions in the past. As Hadlow mentioned ‘Boots can offer more control through take off and landing, but they limit your trick list whilst in the air.’

Playing to criteria

Competitions are all about the judging format, and to win and event you have to know the criteria! This season we saw tricks like kite loop board offs and one foot loops adding to the variety score, saw the likes of team rider, Lewis Crathern, a die hard boots man, loose out due to this shift indulging criteria.

Major part in R&D

R&D at Duotone is always driven by performance, which is why our international team riders are integrated into our development process. Alongside designers, Ralf Grösel and Ken Winner, we develop products to perform in the conditions that riders strive to find. Whether it’s the extreme side of Big Air or the intricacies of shredding the endless wave, our R&D department is constantly involved with the highest level of feedback from GKA freestyle World Champions to the King’s of the Air. We design to perform!

Tom Court media Red Bull

Not only does our team innovate on the water and express themselves with our products, they also push the boundaries off the water too. Back stage in the editing box of the biggest kiteboarding competition on the planet, Tom Court was the specialist editor that Red Bull chose to ensure that our sport is represented in the best way possible. Cutting lightweight, fast edits and highlights from the event to be broadcast around the world, the Duotone Sports family cares about the sport from start to finish.

We are Duotone!

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