THE COMEBACK KID
Youri and I met early on in my involvement with kiting. I was shooting a lot with Reno Romeu at the time – he was quite good friends with Youri and he introduced us. I ended up working with Youri on a couple of video projects and we’ve been good friends ever since. Youri is one of the nicest guys you will ever meet – super friendly, always happy, full of energy and incredibly humble. Recently he became a father, and has got into triathlon which is a sport I also enjoy. For now, I can give him a hard time on a road bike, but I don’t think that will be for long! He always gives 100% to everything he does. I sat down with Youri to talk about his career as one of the most successful kiters of all time.
HOW DID YOU GET INTO FREESTYLE KITING?
In everything I did, I always tried to push myself – with kiting it was no different. I had the ambition to ride in the competitions, and ride at the highest level possible. Back in 2004 when I started doing competitions, freestyle was the biggest contest circuit, so that was where I had to be to match myself against the big names. Back in those days it was Aaron, Ruben… Johnny was still there, Alvaro… that was my first competition.
WAS THAT STILL IN THE BOARD OFF ERA?
I started kiting when it was still board offs, and I did them for the
