Arriba

El Fabuloso Team has competed at the WSKC France 2006!

Berck sur Mer, France, April 11 to 14, 2006

For second time El Fabuloso Team has had the opportunity to compete in the World Championship. It is amazing.

It is hard to describe the feelings we have after living this experience at France and after our preparation in Buenos Aires. You must imagine that:

bullet

We are from a country where there is not a championship so we can't compete during the year

bullet

We did not have any support from anyone at our practice flying field (a public park) so we must steal electric power at night from a public light in order to have power for our CD player to practice with music

bullet

We went to France with a member that was taking the risk of losing his job because he must leave 12 days

bullet

We did feel alone in this crusade: one more time

And then we went to Berck sur Mer and we got into the competition. With strong winds that we had never experienced in our lives: one day we started to fly our technical routine with 41 km/h wind speed and we ended with 50 km/h! Wind check? What's that? We were so occupied suffering that we forgot to shout it.

Once again we have heard Mrs. Kathy Jarvis, the Field Director, saying "OK, judges are ready", while we were at the flying arena, very nervous. We can not imagine a World Championship without her as Field Director.

We can say that it was a dream to be again in Berck, but sometimes it was a nightmare.

In 2004 we failed because we had not UL kites. This time we had them but they never went out of their bags. We must put all kinds of air brakes we had to our vented kites.

We, as a team, suffered internal and competition stress. The damn stress that got us into mistakes while we fly. We could have ended in a little better rank. Just little errors and little points. But this is competition. We must take it as it was and as it is.

We have heard from many nice people we met again this year at Berck that we have improved a lot in our flying level since the last time we competed. Thank you. We have been working a lot.

Our score in 2004 was 45. This year it was 60. Next time it must be 70 and we will end 6 in the rank. ;-)

We want to thank the organizer, Gérard Clement, and all the people of Berck sur Mer City.

We also want to thank all the people that gave us their warm treatment during all the Festival: WATNU, Equipo 2600, Atemoc, Carnival, Xaloc, Tame Bird, Cutting Edge, Neo, Air Zone, Flame, Matrix Management, Scratch Bunnies, David Gomberg, Ray Bethel, John Barresi and many more people we met there.

Finally we want to thank especially our kite sponsor, Alto Vuelo, who gave us all its best to help us to reach again the World Championship, this year with a set of three kites.

Here it is the ranking of the competition:

RANKING

TEAM

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Final

Prec

Ballet

Prec

Ballet

Prec

Ballet

1

Cutting Edge
USA

80.50

81.92

78.76

85.16

70.40

87.48

82.98

2

Tame Bird
France

74.32

81.28

76.81

83.68

73.15

86.52

80.33

3

Air-Rex
Japan

61.90

72.12

68.62

83.92

61.75

81.52

73.99

4

Watnu
Germany

68.25

67.64

78.97

74.88

68.08

55.60

72.43

5

Ninja
Japan

67.55

66.44

75.13

70.48

64.46

76.32

72.37

6

Neo
Japan

53.27

63.44

67.23

78.28

64.72

70.12

70.09

7

6th Sense
USA

56.35

60.04

66.24

64.40

61.94

74.88

66.87

8

O4
France

59.78

62.00

66.77

72.68

54.69

66.32

66.39

9

Flame
England

60.43

60.68

66.82

63.64

53.49

68.48

64.84

10

AirZone
USA

62.26

48.44

64.26

56.76

60.64

70.08

63.34

11

Atemoc
Colombia

49.99

0.00

54.05

68.40

53.38

69.28

61.28

12

Matrix Management
England

55.39

51.52

62.63

57.64

56.87

65.24

60.59

13

El Fabuloso Team
Argentina

53.71

46.20

62.85

60.88

49.82

63.68

60.28

14

Xaloc
Spain

47.23

43.12

59.91

50.52

49.93

53.08

53.36

15

Equipo 2600
Colombia

34.33

49.96

53.64

61.56

45.29

52.04

53.13

16

Carnival
Italy

49.30

40.52

50.88

53.28

44.23

57.80

52.82

This time, the whole Fernández family went to France and this means that Team Tropita (the two youngest) was at Berck, flying its routine in front of international public and the world's best teams. After they have seen the kids flying, many flyers told that vacancies in El Fabuloso Team are not safe!

After the Berck sur Mer Festival and World Championship, the Fernández Family and Ariel stayed at Paris for three days and they could visit the most important places of this city. LAlo could not stay and took a rush flight to Beijing, China, in order to participate in the Weifang International Kite Festival.

Here are some pictures of the Berck sur Mer Festival and World Championship

At the airport

With our new caps

At the Cotagge

Going to the beach

Flags

To see our flag with the others justify all our work

Before competition

we practice a lot

Here with our vented kites

No sticks

We use only our fingers for rehearsal

Megateam

We did enjoy many of them during the Festival

In the city

going to Le Bistrot, our favorite restaurant

At Le Bistrot

We felt very good in this place as in 2004 too

In the morning

Ariel, Julián & Gastón. Really cold

Team Tropita

Julián and Gastón flying

In the city

Inside the old chapelle, all wood made

Team Tropita

Flying its routine and roll over

Giant inflatables

Gastón posses

El Fabuloso Team

Practicing and practicing

ALMAS

Our Standard kites

Gift from Watnu

New straps for Team Tropita

With Watnu

Our cabinmattes. Stephan with flu

With our banner

El Fabuloso Team and Team Tropita

The best:

Ray Bethell. Here with LAlo

Megateam

Two groups of two lines kites and one of four liners

Practicing

and more practicing

Children's room

Familiar ambience

Youngest line judge

Team Tropita worked as line judges during competence

Cottage des Dunes

Our hotel this year, six blocks away the flying field

Julián

Sleeping inside our cabin. Take a look at the beer boxes

At the VIP tent

looking our routine at the video camera

Oficial poster

El Fabuloso Team and Team Tropita, cold and wet

WATNU

Sebastian Daub, Roger Braun, Georg Wolff & Stefan Scheider

Our cabin

With cold

El Fabuloso Team

Competing with our ALMA kites with 50 km/h!

Banquette

Memorable!

And the winer is:

Cutting Edge from USA

Sharing

a cristal cup with Cutting Edge

Good boys

With Team Carnival from Italy

Argentina

with its 13rd position

All togheter

Teams, Judges and Monsieur Le Organizer

Our kites

ALMA Standard

El Fabuloso Team

with our team and sponsor banners

El Fabuloso Team

flying the ballet routine

With Gerárd Clement

El Fabuloso Team and Team Tropita

David Gomberg, Equipo 2600

with El Fabuloso Team

Team Tropita

flying the routine in front of the international public

Ray Bethell

flying his routine. On the back Alma kites

Enjoying the show

Fernandez members

Breakfast

at the Cottagge

Wind? Who said wind?

Team Tropita making force to keep or flag straight up

With an Argentinean man

and his wife and daughter.

The whole group

Adriana and the two teams

Colombian teams

Equipo 2600 and Atemoc

Fire works

Terrific, never seen

you can visit too: http://www.kitelife.com/archives/wskc06/index.htm

                           http://www.kitelife.com/archives/issue48/berck06/index.htm)

 

These are pictures of LAlo at China: Weifang Kite Festival, Beijing Tour and Deqing Kite Festival

you can visit too: http://www.kitelife.com/archives/issue48/weifang06/index.htm

Weifang Kite Festival

The Argentinean flag besides the other countries' ones

Weifang Kite Festival

High aspect delta besides Chinese kites

Weifang Kite Festival

Competeing in performance category

John Barresi

A kiter and a friend out of this world

Weifang Kite Festival

LAlo with the Argentinian flag

Weifang Kite Festival

Linda (translator) and LAlo

Weifang Kite Festival

Linda, LAlo's translator with the high aspect delta

Weifang Kite Festival

Competeing in traditional kites

Weifang Kite Museum

Donating an Argentinean traditional kite

Weifang Kite Museum

Another view when donating

Weifang Kite Museum

A view from outside

Weifang City

A view from the hotel window

Different foods

Chrysalids and cigals.

International Kite Federation

Many countries signed a petition for Olympic Games

International Kite Federation

Everyone posses for the picture

The Great Wall

Incredible

Going to Deqing

Buildings and more buildings

Deqing Kite Festival

A view from the hotel

 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

THIS WAS WRITTEN DURING OUR PREPARATION TO COMPETE

(in order to have some history we decided to leave it on the webpage)

This was written on February 19, 2006

El Fabuloso Team is preparing to the WSKC France 2006!

Yes, it is. We are working hard for the next World Sport Kite Championship that will be held in Berck sur Mer, France, April 2006. We have been confirmed for this important event.

We will be doing demos for our sponsor at the beaches of Argentina: (Pinamar, Cariló, Ostende and Valeria del Mar, January 21 & 22), (Villa Gesell and Mar de las Pampas, January 29) and (Mar de Ajó, Costa del Este, San Clemente and San Bernardo, February 4 & 5). These demos will be a practice for us, sharpening  ourselves for Berck.

It is a titanic job to prepare all the things we need to have, get, compose, learn and practice. We will need lots of support.

Because there is not an Argentinean Kite Association by the moment, we have joined STACK as International Members. We think we have made a good choice and we feel proud that Argentina is represented by El Fabuloso Team.

We couldn't go to the WSKC 2005 at Oregon, USA because the team members hadn't the time needed to get ready as we want.
When we returned from WSKC 2004 (France) we knew that to compete again in a World Cup we need intensive preparation, well planed routines and very good kites. This time we feel we had the knowledge to end in the middle of the positions table. We are going to compete against the "kite's Schummachers", we definitely know it. Only if we continue competing we will be better and one day, maybe, we could be at the podium. There are teams that are practicing and competing since five years ago.

ALTO VUELO: Now we have a renew support from Alto Vuelo, our kite sponsor since 2004. They do want that we fly their kite models in Argentina and in the next WSKC.
From endings of year 2004, when the ALMA kite project began we felt that this kite had the same flying feeling of the international kites we could fly at France. Now we have the ALMA Standard Pro, the Vented and recently the Ultra Light too.

We are practicing our new routine, making some changes and editing the music to fit better with the maneuvers.

These are the six compulsory maneuvers for Berck 2006:

DT 02 - Pick-up Sticks
DT 03 - Follow, Flank Up, and Square
DT 07
- Sorted Rectangle
DT 08 - The Basket
DT 11
 - Cascade
DT 15 - Solaris