Jarrod Snow goes wild and gets into Kite-Surf World Cup

TORQUAY’S Jarrod Snow will be testing his skills against the best in the world on his home waves at the GKA Kite-Surf World Cup this week.

Snow, who is returning from injury, placed third in the national titles last week to secure his spot in the final round of the World Cup, which comes to Australia for the first time and will be held at Point Danger.

He sat down for a quick chat with us yesterday (Wednesday) on day one of the competition.

 

Q: How long have you been in kite-surfing?

JS: Since I was about 12 (Snow is now 20). Dad was really into it, brought us down here, I sat in the car watching him so I decided I might as well join in.

 

Q: What’s the progression into the sport like?

JS: It’s more of a personal thing, an escape from reality, so you get out in the water as much as you can.

 

Q: So at what point did you start pursuing the sport seriously?

JS: It was definitely pre-injury… there were a few competitions I got into where I realised I wasn’t just an average person and I was a bit better than the others so I decided to take it a bit more seriously, but it wasn’t really one specific moment where it was like “Okay, this is what I want to do”; I got into it slowly.

 

Q: When was the injury?

JS: I did the actual injury in January, right at this spot here (Cosy Corner)… I was doing freestyle kiteboarding, with a wakeboard and boots and everything, I was going for a trick I’d never done before and unfortunately failed and did my ankle. I got misdiagnosed initially, so there was a few months of no treatment and it was just getting worse and worse, so I went to a surgeon and they said “oh yeah, you need some surgery”, and I got a syndesmosis reconstruction in April.

 

Q: What’s that?

JS: Joel Selwood had the exact same thing (in 2017)… it’s like a band between my tib (tibula) and fib (fibula), just to squeeze them back together.

 

Q: How’s your recovery going?

JS: It’s going good now, I’m probably about 70-80 per cent back to normal – strength-wise, it’s 100 per cent, it’s 60 per cent in range of movement.

 

Q: So what difference does that make when you’re in the water?

JS: The strength is good, but it’s more of a mental thing, like there’s sometimes a fear factor when there’s a wave and you really want to do something on it but you don’t want to go there, you’re not used to it yet. I’ve only been in the water four times all year, so it is a bit interesting.

 

Q: That would have included the nationals last weekend, so obviously it went well?

JS: It went really well, I got third place, so I did really well with that.

 

Q: So now you’re here in the World Cup – do you know all these guys and girls, have you followed their progress?

JS: This is the first time I’ve met any of them, my first time on the World Tour, and the first time I’ve placed on the Australian tour.

 

Q: What’s your attitude going into this week?

JS: If the wind picks up today, I’m in the first heat… it probably won’t come in today, I don’t think. I’m not really sure about my attitude – I’ve got nothing to lose, really, so I might as well give it my hardest shot and see where I end up.

 

Q: What’s Point Danger like as a kitesurfing spot?

JS: Amazing. It caters to a lot of different disciplines of kiteboarding – there’s flat water, surf over the back and there’s big waves in here so you can do big jumps – it’s a really, really good spot.

 

For the latest updates on the GKA Kite-Surf World Cup, head to kitesurftorquay.com.au.