The 22-year-old 7-times world kiteboarding champion has just joined Monaco's Yacht Club and is preparing to set a new record for kiteboarding from France to Corsica.
He's young, he's good-looking and he's encircled by a briny aura! The sea is Maxime Nocher's “thing”, so much so that he's now on the starting-blocks to achieve the fastest crossing time from France to Corsica by kiteboard. “The present record was set by a Frenchman, Raphaël Salles, who kiteboarded to Corsica from Gien in 5 hours and 19 minutes. My goal is to do it in under 5 hours.” And Maxime is going to start from Monaco, which adds 20km to the crossing and so makes it even more of a challenge. When? In March or April. “I need an average wind speed of 20 knots. However, Monaco's situation means you can leave in 15 knots then hit 40 knots when you leave the bay. That's too much. So we have to wait for the right weather conditions.” Is success really on the cards? Yes, because kiteboarding equipment has evolved considerably. “I'll be using a kitefoil attached to a flat board, which flies you over the water. It can reach 25 knots and even hit 30, whereas a few years ago the limit was 19 knots.” The highest-performance equipment then, but Maxime's biggest asset is still his own skill!
The Olympics in his sights
Maxime has won world kiteboarding champion-ships seven times in two classes: kitefoil and racing (in which speed is the decider). Kiteboarding has gradually earned its sports credentials since appearing on the scene in the early 2000s and is now effectively structured through federations and the organisation of official world championships. It's now to be an Olympic event for the first time, at the 2018 Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires then the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. “I wanted to be a world champion and I succeeded seven times. Now my big dream is to win an Olympic medal.” And that dream may well come true. Of five classes – Freestyle, Wave Performance, Speed, Racing and Expression (which includes Kitefoil) – only one of those last two will be selected for the Olympics, and as Maxime is a world champion in both Racing and Kitefoil, his hopes are very high! In the meantime he trains, and since joining the Yacht Club de Monaco's crew is intent on passing his passion on to Monegasques.
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