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Take a surf-board, take a kite, take a stretch of water, preferably with waves, and what do you get? Kite-surfing. New sports are constantly being invented by young people in search of fresh experiences. The traditional category definitions of a previous era (concepts such as "team games", "water sports", "track and field" ) are no longer entirely adequate to describe some of these activities. Kite-surfing is a good example. Many of you will have seen this sport, which is growing at an explosive rate. It consists essentially of using a small "kite", resembling a miniature paraglider, as a means of propulsion for an athlete on a water-borne surf board. On the sea, when waves are present, kite-surfers can accelerate to high speed and use waves as a launch-ramp to take off and remain airborne for several seconds, suspended beneath the miniature paraglider, performing aerial acrobatics. The sport obviously needs water. It has elements of wind-surfing and conventional surfing. And the athletes do get airborne, albeit briefly. The "kites" are generally manufactured by paraglider companies, and some familiarity with aerodynamics is presumably necessary to become proficient. The French Ministry of Youth and Sport has decided, in its wisdom, that kite-surfing is an air sport and will be controlled by the French Paragliding Federation. This would imply that the FAI should be taking the sport under its wing at international level. But there are several aspects to consider. Do the International Sailing Federation and/or the International Surfing Federation not feel that this is their baby? Is it really reasonable to call something an "air sport" when the practitioners only defy gravity for a few seconds - and then only partially thanks to the lift generated by the "kite"? Do the people who practice this sport want to be governed at international level? Do they see themselves more as aviators than as sailors or surfers? Or as none of these, but as an entirely new category of wind-assisted sport - more akin to those who use miniature paragliders or "kites" to power land-yachts - and drag themselves across frozen plateaux on skis. The one adjective all the practitioners seem to identify with is "extreme". This is an "extreme sport" - one that challenges all the human faculties. New flexible thinking is required here. There is a depressing tendency to reduce everything to familiar, already existing, categories. Here is an opportunity to build bridges, to create a new unity between sail, surf and soaring. Let us recognise in kite-surfers kindred spirits, and work out arrangements for the administration of their sport that meet their own wishes and ambitions, not those of remote officials from one or another existing federation. To this end, I have established contact with my colleagues in international surfing and sailing to see how this can best be handled. From a cool and damp northern hemisphere, I take this opportunity to wish those of you participating in air sport contests safe and succesful flying.
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