Defi Wind is the biggest windsurfing race on the planet, with an incredible amount of entrants every year. The best things about it? Anyone can enter, whatever your level, plus it is in the south of France so just a short ferry ride and slightly longer drive from the UK. There’s always a good UK contingent that make it down, so who’s in this year?
Full event details below:
DEFI WIND and DEFI KITE, two races like no other in this world
From 23rd May to 1st June 2014 in Gruissan 1.000 windsurfers from 25 nations will line up at the start of DEFI WIND, with world champions, sporting legends and a large number of amateurs including one born in 2001 and another in 1941. These are the figures. Registration for this event, the largest of its kind, is now closed, all sold out.
With 150 kitesurfers, the second edition of DEFI KITE confirms its position as the largest kitesurf event in France. All the big French kitesurfing names will be there as well as several international kitesurf stars, notably Kevin Langeree, the freestyle world champion and recent winner of the Red Bull King Of The Air in South Africa.
The 14th edition of DEFI WIND and the second edition of DEFI KITE will both take place at Gruissan, in the Aude department (France), the capital of the Tramontane wind. These two events, taking place a week apart, are nothing like classic competitions and this is precisely what makes them so incredibly successful. Both these events, imagined by a handful of local enthusiasts brought together by Philippe Bru, mix the greatest professional riders and a large majority of enthusiastic amateurs on the starting line. They are coming to take on one of the most challenging winds in the world, in an extremely simplified race format, to ensure that pleasure is the only parameter taken into account. They are here to experience a personal adventure.
On these two long distance races, the participants will need both speed and stamina. When the Tramontane wind is strong, water conditions become difficult and the course becomes exceedingly physical and demanding. Of course there will be a final result, and the competitors all come to Gruissan aiming to give their best performance, but the success of the DEFIS goes beyond this. Each enthusiast participates more to satisfy their passion and test their own limits.
To take part in one of these two events is to fulfill a dream, to set a personal challenge the way marathon and ultra runners do. The contest offers its participants over twenty kilometres of freedom and the certainty that they will be driven by one of the most legendary winds in the world: the Tramontane. This wind is a genuine local product; dry and sometimes violent, it blows from the north of the Pyrenees to the south of the Massif Central picking up speed as it rushes into Gruissan and rattles the competitors.
Defi Wind and Defi Kite offer them the opportunity to forget about everything else and devote themselves entirely to their passion: wind, speed, freedom and friendship in an already legendary atmosphere. To complement the competition there will be concerts, entertainment, organised by a 120-person strong technical team, turning these two events into major festive gatherings.
DATES:
DEFI KITE, from 23rd to 25th May
DEFI WIND, from 29th May to 1st June
Contact: ILAGO COMMUNICATION
Tel: +33 296 85 43 87
Mob: +33 608 54 53 79
Email: [email protected]
