Final: Porto Pollo, Italy

The 2016 IKA Kiteboarding World Championships are the ONLY official Kiteboarding World Championships sanctioned by World Sailing (formerly ISAF). No other organisation has the right to crown World Champions recognized by World Sailing in any discipline - Freestyle, Big Air, Wave or Slalom. (Note: the racing disciplines are held separately)

All rounds (every stop) of the 2016 IKA Kiteboarding World Championships count for winning a world title in each discipline. Like in Formula 1 or the Ski World Cup there will be no discards - you have to compete in all events and take your points from each event into the final event in each discipline, where the world champions will be crowned.

Yes, of course. We at IKA are happy about you competing at any event in the world that takes place, as long as the event does not claim to be a World Championship (or is perceived as such) without being sanctioned as such by IKA or World Sailing. This would be in direct conflict with World Sailings regulations and World Sailing may take action against that. This could apply to certain events published by the so called "IFKO".

In Freestyle, 5 judges will score every single trick and award points from 0 to 10 - The highest and lowest scores will be dropped and the remaining 3 scores will be averaged, this gives you the score for each trick. The best 5 out of 12 tricks are counted (only the best trick per category).
In Waves, the best two wave scores will count (conditions depending). Aerials will score if they are part of a functional manouver.
In Big Air, we will introduce a new scoring system that is based on overall impression and sets the 4 riders in each heat in relation to each other. It is important for organizers and media to have the Big Air discipline distinctly different to Freestyle. We will explain that in more detail at the first event. The main idea is to go as big as possible and do whatever you like as long as it is radical and looks good.

We will have a full media team at every event: Videographers, editor, professional photographer, journalist/social media editor, and live commentator.

For the first time we will broadcast a live audio stream from each event from the racing action, in addition to the mark roundings and finishing orders.

The TV production will be broadcasted in almost 200 countries and is expected to have more than 5000 broadcasting hours per event.

Freestyle, Big Air and Wave will all have live scoring based on a tablet system wherever the internet connection allows. But in any case the results will come out immediately after the heat.

Freestyle and Wave will be run in a double consolidation - similar to a dingle elimination but every rider has a second chance up to the quarter final, and the top seeds cannot meet before the semi finals respectively finals.
Big Air will be a pure single elimination for 32 men and 16 women - with 4 riders in each heat and the "flag down" system.

All events will have trials in each discipline. However, not everyone can enter the trials:
The top 16 men and top 8 women are pre-set for each event, there are 2 wildcards for men and 1 for women. The remaining places in the main event are selected by trials.
To enter the trials, a riders must be either ranked in the top 50 men (top 25 women) in the world ranking, finished in the top 3 of a national championship event of an IKA full member, or finished in the top 10 of an IKA continental championship.
There are also 5 wildcards for the trials that the local organizer will distribute upon application.
There are no entry restrictions in slalom.

The judging team consists of top judges you all know. Our head Judge will be Leo Rose and we will introduce the other members of the team one by one.
The requirement for the Contest Director is to be a World Sailing certified International Race Officer (to make sure that everything will be done 100% according to the rules). Bruno de Wannemaeker will fill this role as often as possible (when he is not at the Olympic Games in Rio).
Toby Bromwich will make sure on most of the events that all pictures of you are top notch.
Lewis Crathern will do commentating and live audio streaming, and our media director will get footage from the events out all over the world.

The seeding in the main event is based on every riders best 3 results in the past 12 months. Most recent events are weighted stronger than events from i.e. 11 months ago as the form of a rider changes over time.
This seeding has nothing to do with the World Championships standing - it is solely used to assign riders to the elimination ladder considering their most recent performance.
More details can be found here: http://internationalkiteboarding.org/index.php/freestyle/events/world-ranking-system