Dubai: Kim Dae Yeob of South Korea, Laurent Calliot of France and Suksan Tongthai of Thailand walked away with the three titles on offer at the inaugural X-Dubai Flyboard World Cup held on the sidelines of the Fifth Dubai International Parachuting Championship (DIPC) at Skydive Dubai on Saturday.
Up against American Damone Rippy in the pro final before a packed holiday crowd at the Skydive Dubai breakwaters, Tongthai displayed some amazing skills on the flyboard to walk away winner in the competitive pro class.
Making her first-ever appearance in a World Cup, Korean Kim got the better of Stephanie Wells of Canada to win the ladies crown after the Canadian had broken her jet-ski during her performance.
The veterans’ title went to Frenchman Calliot as he rolled back the years to defeat Martin Von Steednik of Sweden in an engrossing final. For someone who has taken up Flyboard as a sport as recently as three months, Kim was thrilled at winning a world title on debut. “It’s an unbelievable feeling to win. I just went out there with the belief that I should give off my best,” the South Korean said.
Esmail Al Hashemi, Operations Director, X-Dubai, was convinced the sport has a future in the UAE. “We love to experiment with new sports and we are equally good at adapting to such daredevil brand of entertainment. I am sure Flyboard has come to stay here,” Al Hashemi said.
Franky Zapata, Flyboard inventor and CEO, Zapata Racing, was pleased with the response to the championship. Zapata has conducted two editions of the World Cup in Doha in 2012 and last year. “But Dubai is such an amazing place and everything that we have tried doing here has been ten times better than any other place that we’ve been to anywhere else in the world,” Zapata said.
“We’ve made a great start to the competition in Dubai and we are here to stay. It’s been an amazing experience and we want this to continue,” he added.
The three categories in the competition had attracted close to 200 participants contesting for a total prize fund of $30,000 (Dh110,000) put out by sponsors X-Dubai. The field was trimmed down to the best 32 riders on Friday after which the knockout stages were held on Saturday.
