Jesse Richman takes home second Red Bull King of the Air title

The Hawaiian big air and big wave specialist, Jesse Richman, claimed his second Red Bull King of the Air title at the 2020 contest, beating off stern challenges by previous Red Bull King of the Air champions Nick Jacobsen and Aaron Hadlow in the final.

The 2020 King of the Air conditions

The Cape Doctor delivered a solid day of wind on Thursday 6 February at Kite Beach in Cape Town, allowing for the seven hour event to run over the course of a single day. Sportive Director Sergio Cantagalli commented:

“We managed to score the perfect day. It was arguably the best day we were going to get during the weather window. It is very unusual that we could start so early on in the day and have consistent conditions throughout.”

Attended by a crowd of 10 000 people in front of the iconic Table Mountain, 24 of the world’s elite kiteboarders battled it out over 34 heats to lift the title.

The rider lowdown

This year, the format of the event was altered so that Rounds 1 and 2 featured wildcard entries, video entry winners and the four ‘Fly to Red Bull King of the Air’ winners. From these 18 competitors, 12 progressed into Round 3, where they were joined by the top six finishers from the 2019 event. 

Angely Bouillot became the first woman to make a debut in the Red Bull King of the Air. She bowed out gracefully to Ewan Jaspan from Australia in the second round.

The competition also saw its first ever display of strapless freestyle riding from Airton Cozzolino, who was knocked out in Round 2 by local Joshua Emanuel. Five South Africans competed in the event, and Stuart Downey and Joshua Emanuel made it into the quarter-finals, where they lost to Liam Whaley and Aaron Hadlow respectively. 

After progressing to the semi-finals, Liam Whaley came up against Nick Jacobsen and the two had an epic high-scoring heat, which saw Whaley edged out. 

Another favourite was three time Red Bull King of the Air champion, Kevin Langeree, who was stopped in his tracks by Jesse Richman in the quarter-finals.

Lewis Crathern also made it to the quarter-finals and put in a brave display, despite competing with broken ribs. Crathern is the only rider to have competed in every Red Bull King of the Air in Cape Town. 

The final

As a top six finisher from 2019, Jesse Richman joined the competition in Round 3 along with Nick Jacobsen. Aaron Hadlow was forced out of the competition in 2019 with an injury and thereby had to make his way from Round 1 to the final, competing in the very first and very last heat over a gruelling seven hour period. 

But it was ultimately Richman who took home the most coveted prize in kiteboarding after the biggest single day of Red Bull King of the Air competition ever. Jacobsen took home second place and Hadlow third. Speaking after the competition, Richman said:

“This feels incredible. This is magical. It is amazing to have my newborn daughter here and share it with this crowd. I’ve had really good heats leading up to the finals in many years and usually kind of crack in the final, having peaked too early. So this year I adjusted a few things and was really confident in my plan and my strategy. It was really cool to see it play out. To have it all run in one day was kind of just like 2013 – just one epic day.”

Two other prizes were awarded on the day. Nick Jacobsen took home the ‘Mystic Move of the Day’ for a kite-loop board-off which racked up an impressive score of 9.02 out of 10. Meanwhile the ‘Woo Highest Jump of the Day’ went to Marc Jacobs from New Zealand, for a 22m jump.