Select to expand quote
hammo said..Zebra80 said..Not Yet but they will in the future
Sorry Dusta what ever is your name One thing that I know is that Kiteboarding Australia doesn't give any support for the Athletes
My friend just went over seas
For a hang-gliding competition all payed for the Australian hang_glidding federation and is a very small Sport and is not going to be in the Olympics .
They must be doing something Wright
My question is
what does Kiteboarding Australia doing to support there athletes overseas ????
That is for the future generations not for me
I Reckon that KA is more interested in the big Brands making money selling kites then represent the Athletes and make this Sport grow

I think Leo has a valid point. KA has a very clear and available 'strategic' plan on its website, drafted at considerable expense in 2013. There's 4 pages outlining how and why Kiteboarding needs to become a National Sporting Organisation (NSO) so that it can build its profile and attract government funding. There was a deadline of January 31, 2014 on this. Has anything happened?
Kiteboard racing has really taken off especially in Perth. Can this success be attributed to the affiliation with Yachting Australia which incidentally has NSO status. Are Racing events funded and are riders supported because of this?
On the Freestyle and Wave events side of things , Kiteboarding needs to attract funding from other sources so that the burden does not land on the shops and kite 'brands'. Australia is a 'huge' country so travel to interstate events is expensive and very prohibitive. I can guarantee you won't get many of the WA wave riders to Merimbula because its just too difficult and expensive to get there. If funding was available maybe the WA attendance would be different. WA holds some fantastic wave events and if funding was available maybe there would be more Eastern States attendance ??
Lets hope that KA secures NSO recognition soon, as Kitesurfing really does need a boost!
Hi Hammo
Thanks for the interesting question - KA does not have NSO status
still (THIS IS FRUSTRATING!). We have been working on it and are unfortunately are continually being thwarted by the fact that at the moment the Australian Sports Commission chooses to follow international structures and only recognise Australian Sailing who ostensibly include kiteboarding as a wind/water sport. This has been fairly intractable and hard to move.
We are trying to come up with some more creative solutions:
1. Getting Australian Sailing on board to do development work in kiteboarding. We have some movement there despite the fact that they have had really unsettled leadership so seem to have stagnated in the last 2 - 4 years. We had meetings as recently as this week to get firmer commitments on this front.
2. Supporting states to get state sporting (or recreation) organisation recognition. While this may seem weird there is actually some prospect of getting ground up recognition where state sport and recreation departments are more willing to invest in sports that have broad community value but no real high performance (here we're talking Olympic) focus.
Regarding supporting events through corporate sponsors it is definitely a focus and something we are working on - the question is how we provide value to those partners in a sustainable fashion. Sponsorship money from corporates for small (non-broadcasted) sports is famously difficult but with a creative approach I think we will see a diversification of our income over the coming years.
Funding for individual riders is a strategic question that hasn't really come up to be honest, we are more focused on trying to support quality events in a diverse range of locations due to the potential return for the community being greater. We are also focused on getting prize money at events that might encourage top riders to travel.
This is my long winded way of saying we are working on it and nothing is a silver bullet - more members, providing schools with accreditation, sponsorships, government grants, support from Australian Sailing, State Sporting recognition and more will all go towards giving kiteboarding a boost.
If anyone has any ideas we're always open to motivated volunteers getting involved (the organisation survives with one modestly paid employee and many many volunteers), or even just to connect potential partners or interesting ideas.
Cheers
Alex
contact@kiteboardingaus.com