By Neto Baptiste
Antiguan kite-boarder Tiger Tyson, has his heart set on competing at the 2024 Olympics when the sport is slated to make its debut at the International games as a relay event.
Tyson, who recently dominated both the senior and under-19 divisions of the Caribbean Foiling Championships held in St Martin, said he has already identified a possible partner for the games in Ella Geiger who is currently attending school in the UK.
“I am definitely considering that and I am going to keep on training. The thing is that I will need a girl to compete with me because it is going to be a relay race, so there is going to be one boy and one girl. At the moment, I have found a girl, her name is Ella Geiger and she is very committed to training and competing. She came to the Caribbean Championships with me, so 2024 is looking like a possibility,” he said.
Fourteen-year-old Geiger also competed in the recent Caribbean Foiling Championships.
Tyson, who won gold in both the senior men’s and under-19 categories, described the event as challenging, adding that low winds made it difficult for most competitors.
“We thought there was going to be more wind and I sort of like the light wind, but it was a little too light so this caused some other issues and other things to think about as well as racing. So everyone had to take out their biggest kites and take into mind their strategies going around the racecourse. You don’t want to go into places where there are holes in the wind, because that would lead to your kite falling out of the sky and not being able to complete the race,” he said. The 17-year-old Antiguan also recorded the fastest completion time of the two-lap kite-foiling course of six minutes. His top speed was 51 kilometers (28 knots), confidently putting him as a rising star in the Caribbean kite-foiling world.