PKRA Germany: The Life of a Rockstar

Posted Wednesday August 29th, 2007

By Kristin Boese

August 17th – 27th

The past ten days were probably my busiest ten days of the whole year. The PKRA Gard Kitesurf World Cup is the biggest kiteboarding event in the whole world and as I am sponsored by Gard for the event I am running around like crazy doing media stuff during the whole event.

The madness all started the day before the event began. I was a guest on a big talk show in Germany along with some other very famous celebrities from Germany and the USA. Since the talk show began very late at night and the PKRA Event registration was early the next morning, we had to drive all night to get there in time to register. Luckily there was no wind on the first day but that didn't stop the cameras and media frenzy and the endless interviews and photo shoots. I also had an autograph signing session and signed thousands of autographs for my fans on t-shirts, frisbies, balls, hats, posters, magazines, hands, body parts, babies, etc.

The next day we had some light winds for the course racing. We ran three races and I was actually quite impressed with the level of the girl's racing as some of us finished the course ahead of some of the guys who had started the race two minutes earlier than the girls! The racing is becoming quite competitive and I think it will play a huge roll in the future of Kiteboarding!

There were a few days of no wind during the first week of the competition which made it quite hard for me because at times I had up to three TV crews following me around and documenting my every move and of course they wanted to see some action, so I had to come up with things and run around in a wetsuit sometimes. It was really fun and exciting to work with all the media and to be able to go home and see myself on TV every night but also very exhausting at the same time as I just couldn't get away from the cameras and have a moment's peace. Luckily, I had my boyfriend Sky there to take care of me and give me support when I just couldn't take it anymore.

Robby, Kristin and Sky at the beach watching the freestyle

On Tuesday we had some wind for the freestyle event and it actually was fun as we had pretty good conditions. I had no idea how I would do in that and thought I might not even make it into the second round as I really have not practiced any freestyle over the winter. But then, watching the girls ride I really was not that impressed. Mostly the girls were trying to land really difficult tricks and just exploding left and right. I'm glad to see that they are pushing it but at this point it is hardly anything more than crashing and burning. I thought it kind of was more exciting to watch girls compete a year or two ago when they were doing more moves and when the overall impression still counted more. I was really happy to see Gisela riding well and putting some solid heats together though and am stoked for her that she will become world champion at the end of the year.

Even more fun than freestyle was the Boarder Cross competition! The flying starts were great and coming to the first buoy at full speed with a pack of riders was a rush. I actually won the Boarder Cross and became Boarder-Cross World Champion and then got to watch from the beach as Sky won his race and also became World Champion. It was an incredible experience to share!

But there were more experiences made that week. I also taught the members of a famous German rock band to fly kites on the beach and they ended up giving me two backstage passes for Sky and I to go to the concert that night. When we got there they unexpectedly pulled me up on stage for an impromptu interview in front of about 15,000 screaming fans! That definitely gave me a rush I will not forget too soon!

After lots and lots of crazy things, lots of riding and competition in 3 different disciplines and countless interviews and signatures given, the week finally came to an end. The award's ceremony was as nice and professional as the whole event and the event Organizers “Act Agency” did a great job again! Thanks big time to the whole “Act Agency” and also “9pm media” Team! We had Robby Naish up on stage handing out all the awards and I was stoked to get called up on the podium for all three disciplines. I ended up First in boarder cross, second in Course Racing and third in freestyle.

Kristin and a camera man putting a finger cam onto her lines as another TV crew waits their turn in the background

And as the last job of the week I had one more talk show to go to. Directly after the awards a driver picked me up at the event and drove me two hours to Bremen. I did the talk show, was driven back to my van and Sky and I drove all the way back to Berlin and made it home at about 2:30 in the morning. I awoke this morning to find a huge box full of fan mail that I am busy signing right now.

And as soon as I am done with that I will start packing packing to go to Portugal tomorrow morning to compete in the KPWT Wave Masters in Guincho. Yipppiiiii!