By Neto Baptiste
Antiguan kite-boarder, Tiger Tyson, finished fifth in the under-19 category of the recently held European Championships in Poland.
The athlete, who achieved the top five finish from amongst 30 competitors said he was somewhat affected after his 21 metres kite went missing ahead of the tournament.
“It was really bad timing actually because the waiting time for getting a new kite is like two months. My kite got stolen like 10 days before the competition and it was my biggest kite which is the one I mostly use because it was light wind in Poland so unfortunately I had to buy a second hand kite which wasn’t the size I was used to so that was a little bit off-putting but I did my best,” he said.
Despite the obvious inconvenience, Tyson believes he could have done a bit more and finish higher up the chain.
“I think I could have performed a little bit better but considering the competition that was there I did pretty well. I made it into the gold fleet which consisted of the top 30 so I was pretty happy with that so racing with the top 30 was a great experience because you can’t really race against people better than those guys,” the athlete said.
The Antiguan said however that he learnt a lot during his time in Europe as he had the opportunity to rub shoulders with some of the best in the sport.
“I came about a month ago and I came to France to train with some of the best guys in the world so that was a really amazing experience. I was in France for about two weeks and then I headed to the European Championships in Poland so I was in Poland for about two weeks for one week of training and then another week competing. There were over 90 riders, all the best people around Europe which includes multiple world champions,” he said.
Tyson was set to return to Antigua yesterday.