Formula Kite World Championship: Kite newcomer Jan Vöster shines off Sardinia

In 2024, Jan Vöster celebrated silver at the U21 World Championships. Last year, he finished 31st in the senior field of Olympic kiters. The young athlete from Neuenburg am Rhein has now shown what can happen in a year if you work hard and have a strong training group at the Formula Kite World Championship off Sardinia. With the best result of his career, the 21-year-old perspective squad sailor from the German Sailing Team catapulted himself into eighth place at the World Championships. The outstanding week of the kiter from the Württemberg Yacht Club only ended in the quarter-finals.

Formula kite ace Vöster: "Really proud of my result"

DSV head coach Dom Tidey accompanied the top kiters of the German Sailing Team around coach Aleksei Chibizov on the water and on land during the World Championship week. His conclusion: "Jan can be very proud of his performance and his massive progress. He executed his plan for the week perfectly, was super consistent and super solid. Now the next thing he has to learn is that he belongs there and deserves to be there."

After intensive winter work, Jan Vöster and his experienced team-mate Jannis Maus and New Zealand sparring partner Lukas Walton-Keim were able to compete with the best in the Italian world championships. In the 19 races up to the quarter-finals, Jan Vöster took seven top-five places, impressing above all with his strong downwind speed. "I'm happy, mega satisfied and really proud of the result," he said on Sunday afternoon at Poetto Beach in Quartu Sant'Elena

Jan Vöster once again opened the quarter-finals strongly with furious downwind speed. He was the only one travelling with a 15 kite, while his competitors Benoit Gomez (FRA), Vojtech Koska (CZE) and Jan Marciniak (POL) had opted for the slightly smaller 11 kites. "Jan is not afraid to take risks, he has a bit of a downwind god image," says Jannis Maus with a smile about his eight years younger training partner.

The downwind power from Germany

Vöster himself enjoyed his first quarter-final at a World Championship in the Olympic field, saying: "It was great fun to be able to compete in this format for the first time in the men's event." Vöster lived up to his reputation once again in the quarter-finals when he thundered from third position to the top on the first downwind from the top mark to the leeward buoy. After that, however, he paid for his very brave choice of the big kite. "It was really tough on the second cross because the 15 was already well powered up and the 11s were travelling a bit faster."

I then went out a little earlier to avoid being swallowed up by the other two. That was the wrong decision." Jan Vöster

Vöster also explained why his move was not rewarded: "There were a lot of spins on the course. The turn a few metres earlier hit me pretty hard. The other two went a bit further and had a nice lift to the buoy. That's where I lost it, unfortunately. Even the downwind with the bigger kite couldn't save me. These are decisions that you might make differently with a bit more composure. I'll take that with me as experience. As well as the great support from my training group."

Jan Vöster knows what he has to thank his training group for as the youngest newcomer: "Jannis and Lukas had already prepared together for the Olympic Games last year and were already training partners. I joined in the winter. The training was great! We are all similar in terms of speed and therefore very effective. I was able to catch up so well that I can also ride at the front."

We complement and push each other really well. The working atmosphere is efficient and progressive." Jan Vöster

Jan Vöster sees the fact that he can benefit from the experience of Olympic fifth-placed Jannis Maus as a great asset. For him, this closes a circle, as it was Jannis Maus, with whom Jan Vöster experienced a kite camp on Fehmarn in autumn 2018, that led him to competitive regatta sport. Vöster had just learnt to foil at the time. Maus helped him to flysurfer racing kites.

Jannis is one of the people who helped me get into the racing circuit and start racing." Jan Vöster

Like Flo Gruber, Jannis Maus has been a role model for him from the very beginning, says Vöster. And this too: "To now be able to compete on an equal footing with Jannis is a great feeling." The journeyman has caught up with the champion.

Out for Maus after an unfortunate second half

Olympic fifth-placed Jannis Maus from the Cuxkiters club had also wanted to fight for a place in the final at the World Championships. The 29-year-old from Oldenburg, last year, alongside Leonie Meyer, the most successful German player among the Olympic sailors in the Bay of Marseilleis still dividing his time this year between his doctoral thesis and kitesurfing.

Nevertheless, Jannis Maus was in good form and started the World Championships strongly, until he had to put up with a series of unfortunate tangles and other annoying situations in the second half that were not of his own making. Finishing fourteenth in the World Championships, Jannis Maus clearly missed out on a place in the final series of the top eight and had to admit defeat.

It went phenomenally badly." Jannis Maus

The popular favourite and dynamo of the German Sailing Team made no secret of his disappointment: "I'm very disappointed because we had trained so much and had a very good feeling." Whether he was "cleared" by a competitor without right of way or stopped by annoyingly tangled equipment: In the Olympic discipline of Formula Kite, there is usually no redress for many such situations. "A lot of bad things have come together," said Jannis Maus.

Tough regulations - often without compensation

There is an ongoing discussion in the class about how to make up for the lack of restitution. It was once introduced for kiters in order to stem the tide of "tangle protests", among other things. In reality, however, it often opens the door to distorted results, because kite athletes are "cleared" and robbed of their chances without any offence on their part.

Neither the two top German kiters from the German Sailing Team nor the other Formula kiters will have to wait very long for their next World Championship opportunity, as their 2026 world title fights will take place in the spring. Then the German kite aces will once again be a force to be reckoned with. Ricardo Pianosi (ITA) took the men's World Championship gold this year ahead of Maximilian Maeder (SGP) and Benoit Gomez. In the women's event, Jessica Kampman (NED) prevailed against kite icon Daniela Moroz (USA) and Lauriane Nolot (FRA). Click here for the World Cup results.

REPLAY! The final series of the Formula Kite World Championship off Sardinia: