Kahului, Hawaii – November 22, 2012: The KSP World Championship final is set to take place at Ho’okipa Beach Park from November 29 to December 8, 2012. The Ho’okipa Kite Surf Pro will see the world’s top 24 male and 12 female kitesurfers compete for the highly coveted world championship title at one of the sport’s most iconic venues.

“Ho’okipa is such an amazing venue for wind sports”, says Ho’okipa Kite Surf Pro event coordinator Samantha Bittner. “We had such great success recently with the Maui Makani Classic windsurfing event and I am really looking forward to seeing what the best kitesurfers in the world can do out at the point.” 

Heading into the final event of the season, current tour points leader and local Maui boy Patri Mclaughlin (HI, North) will look to secure his first world title in front of his home crowd following some hard-fought battles on tour this year in Portugal, Mauritius and Ireland. Reigning KSP World Champion and current world number 2 Airton Cozzolino (ITA, North) and world number 3 Sebastian Ribeiro (BRA) remain hot on McLaughlin’s heels in a very tight world title race.

Following her first place finish at last month’s KSP event in Ireland, current female KSP Tour frontrunner Jalou Langeree (NED, Naish) is intent on carrying her winning momentum into the final event of the season. Langeree is followed closely by 2011 World Champion Ines Correia (POR, RRD) and Ninja Bichler (GER, North) in a hotly contested world title race that will come down to the wire at Ho’okipa.

The Ho’okipa Kite Surf Pro 2012 and the KSP also announce round 4 of the 2012 Fantasy KSP powered by Fantastar.com. The round will remain open until midnight on November 28, 2012 (GMT), just hours before the start of the KSP World Championship Tour Final and teams can now be selected from the confirmed riders list below. The Local Wild Cards for the Ho'okipa Kite Surf Pro will be determined in the Local Wild Card Qualifier taking place just before the first round of the main event. 

Fantasy KSP enables fans and kitesurfers from around the world to participate in the KSP World Tour by assembling their own dream team of tour riders prior to each world championship tour event and “betting” on them to win awesome prizes. Fantasy KSP is free, fun, and open for all to play.

Tune in to www.kspworldtour.com/live for the KSP World Championship Tour Finals at Ho’okipa Beach in Maui, HI from Nov. 29 – Dec. 8

The Ho’okipa Kite Surf Pro is supported by the County Of Maui, Best Kiteboarding, Cabrinha Kites, Naish Kites, North Kiteboarding, Maui Kitesurfing Community, Eternal Riders, Second Wind, Maui Beach Hotel, Mana Foods, Whole Foods Maui, Pacific Millworks, Mama’s Fish House and KSP Tour Outfitter ION Essentials.

The confirmed list of riders for the Ho’okipa Kite Surf Pro reads as follows: