Kitesurfing girl Valentina Martin

by Valentina Martin
(San Juan, Argentina)

where are you from? San Juan, Argentina

Your age? 21 Years old

Where did you grow up? I grew up in San Juan but I live in Cordoba now.

Any kite sponsors? Who? Not yet hehe

Special achievements...? 1est place in Redeye Contest Cordoba 09, it was the first

competition made in my place. It was really funny to compete for the very first time.

Life occupation besides kite... Besides kite I am studying Business Administration, I'm

in the last year, thinking more about kiting than in the books, but I'm trying hard to focus

so I can be done with that soon and dedicate a year to travel where I can kite and snowboard

J for a year.

Music? It depends on what I’m doing, at home or in the car usually Reggae, with friend at

night Reggeton jaja or something to have fun with.

Interested in..? Being around nice and interested people, good places to kite, perfect

beaches and being happy with myself.

Food? Everything is good, especially chocolates after dinner hehe. I love barbecue and

empanadas, very typical from here as also. Pizza, who doesn’t like pizza! Those will my

favorites I guess.

Heroes? My father who I admire a lot

Favorite kitesurfing spots for you? In Argentina the best one ever is Cuesta del Viento in

San Juan, where there is between 15 and 35 knots every single day from August until March,

after that I did kite ones in a nice beach in Brazil and loved it, but I’m sure there are

soooo many spots to get to know, I hope I can visit at least some of them next year!

Places you have been kiting at... In Argentina I have been kiting in Potreros de Garay

and Carlos Paz (Cordoba) ; Cuesta del Viento (San Juan) ; Nahuel Huapi (Bariloche) ; Tafi

del Valle (Tucuman) ; Buenos Aires and El Condor (Viedma), In Brazil I went to Ferrugem on

holidays and it was very windy one day and decided to take my kite out, but it wasn’t a

special spot to kite and nobody else was doing it and it was after 1 or 2 months I started,

so actually I did it but just for 10 minutes because I was very scared haha, I loved it

anyway, and decided to take a bus to Ibiraquera where some people where kiting and I felt

more sure over there.

[How long have you been kitesurfing? Since October 2008.

Why kitesurfing? I saw it one day, this person (don’t know if it was a guy or a girl),

what I could saw was someone riding waves and having so much fun and really feeling it, so

as I did snowboard I thought it would be something similar because of the shape of the

board. Anyway I save money, called a Kite instructor, took my first lesson on a Saturday and

one week later I had my first kite J.

What does your family think of this? At first nobody really understood what was happening,

but after a few month I got my older brother into it, and my family came and saw me in a

competition and they like it now!

What does this sport mean to you? Means having an awesome time with myself on the water,

laughing the all day with friends in a really nice place. If I wake up sad, for example, and

its windy I just need to go into the lake and everything becomes perfect again.

Favorite tricks? I'm horrible with tricks I can’t even do the backroll because I'm scared

I guess, some of the guys here made a kicker and I really like it, makes everything

different its like being in a snowpark.

What does this sport demand of you? It demands bad grades in college sometimes, or not

going out on weekend when I know is going to be windy the next day but it gives me so much

more than that.

Have you ever been in an accident? I broke my nose one but no surgery was needed so it

wasn’t that bad, it was the first couple of weeks I was doing kite, someone was helping me

to put the kite up and I think I said wait, he thought I was saying everything is Ok and one

of the lines was not right, so I kind of did Relay up in the air and felt on the ground

pretty hard.

Vision...you wishes for the future… Wishes!! I really wish to spend 4 months living on a

beach where I can kite every single day J and I'm planning to do it next year after working

in Andorra for the winter seasons.