Well, Mallory, what can you tell us about you and your nature? When and how did you start with kitesurfing?

I was born in the island of Guadeloupe ( French West Indies), where I used to windsurf and compete. At the age of 11, I left Guadeloupe and we moved to Costa Rica, one of the best places for surfing, although no winds, which forced me to leave windsurfing for about 3 years, exactly the time I stayed there. Then we came to Tarifa where I’m still living on my own. I arrived here in summer 02 with my family looking for somewhere to live. My parents dedicated their lives to my brother and me, so ever since we were young we’ve always been doing lots of sports, I think we’ve done almost anything. We never stood still, had to play, do something!!! Otherwise we would have started to fight. When I arrived in Tarifa I first saw the beach with hundreds and hundreds of kites, it was full of colors. Kiting seemed pretty sick to me, everyone was playing with the board in the air, jumping all over the place, crashing face first. I told my parents I wanted to try it and it turned out to be my birthday gift for my 14 anniversaries. Today I’m a professional Kiteboarder that travels all year long around the world to compete, attend meetings, to do all sorts of trips to discover new spots, photo shootings and to work with my sponsors. I try to be as competitive as possible and at the same time be a good ambassador of this insane sport. I like what I do, I have the chance to go to many new places around the world, meet people, help them with their material, give advices and show my sport to the ones that don’t know it.

What does your sport mean for you?

Everything! I will never stop practicing any water sport in which you got a board under your feet. Kiting is one of the best things to me as I can do a sport I love by travelling and representing my sport and sponsors. I get to learn loads of things by working with sponsors, competing and attending events and hope I can keep enjoying this experience for as long as it can be possible.

What do you feel flying on the water?

The feeling of jumping 20m high by using a big wave kicker and watch the waves and other riders going under you, spinning in the air, surfing the waves, doing technical tricks… just feel insane, nothing else to say, pure pleasure!

Which is your favourite discipline and why?

I really love freestyle as it’s really technical, going for harder tricks and try to make them look easy, but I also love the wave riding, I will try to do some more wave trips from now on.

I know that you had a bad injury to a knee last season. How are you now? Are you ready to start again with competitions?

Yeah, the technical and powered thing is really nice but you got to pay a price for it. I wasn’t the luckiest rider for now, but not the only one. I hurt my knee a year ago and I’m finishing my recovery soon. Hopefully it will never ever happen again but we have to know that it’s part of the game! Plus we are still evolving and discovering new tricks every year by pushing the limits, so we didn’t really know what to expect, but now I think we do and we can prepare better.

Which is the best place for kitesurfing and why?

I definitely love the place where I live, Tarifa. It’s a spot with so many different conditions and options that it makes it perfect for someone like me who needs to get used to the different situations for the competitions. You need to stay here for a year to understand it, it can be warm or cold, flat water to big waves and choppy, all directions of wind which could be perfectly steady or the most horribly gusty wind… that’s what it makes it the perfect spot. But if we’re talking about the perfect 28º with coconuts trees and turquoise water spot, I have a big list for that! 

What would you want to say to promote your sport? Any advices for someone that wants to approach it?

The first thing I’d say to someone who wants to try it, is to NOT learn by your own… it could be a really easy sport to learn and you could feel the rush in a matter of days if you learn properly by taking lessons, so why make it dangerous and put you in wrong situations (which could easily happen if done badly) if you can avoid it? Kiting is amazing because it’s really easy to learn compare to surfing or windsurfing, in a matter of a week you can feel the adrenaline of gliding on the water and even make your first backloop, that’s what I like to say to people who’s looking for new experiences.