Winning streak: Max Maeder bags gold at Formula Kite Asian Championships in China

SINGAPORE: Yes, he’s done it again! Singapore’s wunderkind Maximilian Maeder took home his second gold on Sept 22 (Sunday) since his win at the Paris Olympics last month.

Maeder, who turned 18 on Sept 12, emerged as the champion at the 2024 Formula Kite Asian Championships in Daishan, China.

The competition was cut short due to poor weather, with a typhoon making its way across the region last week. By Sunday, the winds were still too strong, causing the final day’s races to be called off.

Since Maeder had already won 8 out of the 12 races he competed in, he was declared the winner. In second and third places were Haoran Zhang and Jiangang Wu, who are both from China.

In last year’s competition, Maeder had come in second to China’s Huang Qibin.

However, this is a repeat win for the Singaporean athlete, as he had also bagged the championship in 2022.

Previous to calling the races off, however, the International Kiteboarding Association put up photos of Maeder in an Instagram post.

It was captioned, “8 wins out of 12 races.💪🏻 Max Maeder’s impressive win streak continues. Heading into the final day with an advantage, can anyone catch him?”

The organization also put up a video where Maeder described wind conditions as gusty and added that things worked out since the event organizers had timed the races for times when the current was favourable.

“Sometimes a kite would collapse, and you had to be careful,” he said, adding that he had been happy with the six races he had participated in that day.

According to The Straits Times, the winds exceeded 60 kmh and reached a gale level on the Beaufort scale.

“It’s very nice to be able to fight and get it back. To win in these tough conditions and with such strong competition makes it all the more sweet,” the athlete told ST.

Maeder’s next event is scheduled at Cagliari, Italy, where he’ll participate in the KiteFoil World Series from Oct 1 to 5.

Earlier this month, he won 11 out of 12 races at the Austrian leg of the IKA KiteFoil World Series. He won six out of six games on the first day and five out of six on the second day of the event.

As a gift to the country on National Day, Maeder clinched the bronze medal for the Men’s Formula Kite event at the Paris Olympics on Aug 9. He is Singapore’s youngest Olympic medallist to date. /TISG

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