A life-long Watersports Experience
Giulio Olivieri, founder of Fina Kiteboarding, is anIKO Level 3 Instructor since 2015, with over 1,500 logged teaching hours. He has tought in more than 15 different spots around the globe, formed IKO Assistant Instructors and developped his own teaching method for faster learning for each student.
Giulio obtained his first level certification from the International Kiteboarding Organization in Tarifa, Spain inAugust 2011.
Since then, he has been teaching full-time in the top schools of each international spot that he traveled to. He started in Muine, Vietnam during the winter season of 2011/12, at Windchimes Kitesurfing School. After a successful season learning from an impressing manager Mr. Trang, improving his teaching and own riding skills, he went back to Tarifa for the summer at HS Kiteschool, confronting himself with instructors with the most experience.
After a brief pause in the fall, Giulio continued on to Jericoacoara, Brazil for the 2012 trade-winds season. It was a non-stop 30-knot days, without the need to look at Windguru or any other forecast, as the wind was incredibly guaranteed. Teaching at Kiteiscool was intense, and so were the downwind sessions to the nearby towns.
The winter not being finished after the end of the winds in Jeri, Giulio kept going, this time to Tulum in Mexico, where he was given the opportunity to take over the management of Ocean Prokite, a small school whose owner was moving to Madagascar. Given the positive experience and collaboration with the co-founder of the school, he went back to carry on the position in Tulum the next winter 2013/14 as well.
Between the 2 seasons in Mexico, Giulio joined the Flagbeach team in Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands, for a summer teaching on the boats in deep sea. It was another greatly organized school that gave him also some thoughts to management techniques.
The summer 2014 was the time for Greece. After a brief experience in the northern island of Limnos, he landed inTheologos, Rhodes. SurfingBird had just been built and without much client base, so Giulio contacted some agencies specialized in watersports vacations in order to develop attract more customers. He managed to make agreements with a couple of French agencies to develop theologos as a new destination. It was the beginning of a new activity for Giulio as local agent and tour operator as well.
Giulio finallly made it to Cabarete, a long sought spot that had been suggested by many riders and instructors, for its wind and wave conditions, as well as for being the headquarters of the IKO. But it wasn't before making a detour in Punta Cana, in the opposite side of the island of Hispanola. He was called by the owners of Akwa, who had just opened a school in the Club Med. They needed a hand in setting up the teaching system in the tricky spot with various hazards. He kept a good relationship with the Swiss owners who were based in Cabarete where they introduced him to after the peak season in Punta Cana.
Cabarete ended up being the spot where Giulio spent the most time so far, enjoying the great sessions in the reef after the lessons. He started at Frontloop, where his colleagues from Punta Cana worked, who then introduced him to Laurel Eastman Kiteboarding, the most active school in the Cabarete bay. Having found a good balance and enjoying the vibes of the caribbean town, he prolonged his stay for the summer as well.
During the fall of that same 2015 he returned to Brazil, in Sao Miguel do Gostoso, where his initial mentor had made a deal with Kauli Seadi (3 times World Champion in the Wave circuit of Windsurfing), for taking care of the kite lessons of his school. Unfortunately the season didn't go as planned, but he took advantage of the great conditions to improve his strapless riding in the waves along the coast. As another positive note, toward the end of the season he encountered Vila Emanuelle, a boutique pousada that allowed to reactivate the collaborations with the French agencies by launching another new destination in their lists.
For the summer 2016 Giulio went back to Greece, for a brief visit in Rhodes, and going to spend the season where the Meltemi hits the hardest, and a school with one of the most volume of courses, Paros Kite. It was a great learning experience in terms of management for making the most out of favorable conditions of guaranteed wind, flat and shallow water.
It was time to enjoy Cabarete again, for winter and summer 2017. Towards the end of that summer he made contacts with a luxury condo complex for developing a tour operator activity, but they proposed him a collaboration for the building of a new school in their land. He studied the feasability and planning, and went back after a pause in the fall, but the project was not confirmed. It was time for new explorations in Europe again.
In summer 2018 Giulio landed in Porto Pollo, Sardegna. He ended up running the kite school by himself, teaching the lessons from a zodiac. He met Simone Becherucci, of Airush Italy, with whom he kept in touch and maintaining a relationship of mutual respect, proposed him the development of the project in South Sardinia.
In the meantime he spent the summer 2019 in Salento, giving a help to his friend Dani (met as a fellow instructor in Jericoacoara) and his school Locals Crew Salento. It was a good mix of lessons from the zodiac in the Ionian Sea, and on the beach in the Adriatic. Also the occasion to regain confidence with Windsurfing, with basic equipment.
Summer 2020 was the opening of a new school in South Sardinia, in a private spot giving on a flat and windy lagoon. Fina Kiteboarding supplied for the management of the lessons. Fina Travels got the bookings of the courses through the partner agency Trip Adekua for the success of the season despite the difficult conditions of the pandemic.
Despite a positive return on the launch of the new spot, the problems caused by the difficult relationships with the partners led to the project to be discontinued. In summer 2021 Fina Kiteboarding founded a new partnership with Garganosurf in Vieste, where it took care of some teaching and the management of one of the Kite stations of the school. This time successful, the collaboration left both sides looking forward for continuation.
The last development in Fina Kiteboarding has been the building of yet another collaboration starting in December 2021, with the Duotone Pro Center in Tenerife. Teaching both Kitesurfing and Wingfoiling, it is also creating year-round offers for Kitesurfing and Watersports holidays through Fina Travels.
Before Kiteboarding..
Giulio grew up vacationing in Miyakojima, Japan where his mother is from, and Windsurfing and Sailing with family in Maehama beach.
At that time Kiteboarding was still at its development stages. Kiteboarding prototypes started appearing in the waters around 1984. But it wasn't until 1996 that the first kites were produced in series Windsurfers in Hawaii who wanted to try this evolution were fundamental in the development of Kiteboarding. And this activity initially considered an extreme sport became accessible to the public through safer equipment and formal teaching in 2001.
From Kite Trips to Professional Coaching
Giulio saw kiteboarders for the first time in Halfmoon Bay, CA in 1999. He got impressed by this new fantastic combination of kite flying and surfing both of which he was practicing at the time. He caught them on video, but he did not find the occasion to approach this fascinating sport then.
But it was in Colico, Lake Como, Italy, located around one hour away from Lugano where he was living in 2007, that Giulio signed up for his basic course of Kiteboarding, as soon as he found out that it was being practiced there. After completing his first water-start attempts, he could not stop and ended up traveling across the Atlantic 5 months later to El Yaque in Isla Margarita, Venezuela. There he managed to accomplish his first rides.
And after spending the summer with some practice back in Lake Como, he took a trip to Safaga, Egypt in the Red Sea to improve his skills.
The next year he took a kite vacation in Arraial d'Ajuda, BA, Brazil where he really began enjoying it and started to get the idea of possibly turning it into a more dedicated activity. And after a year of planning, he went back to Arraial d'Ajuda for a second time where he completed the IKO Assistant Instructor Course, first step leading to an instructor certification.
An infinite passion..
While many years spent forming new Kiteboarders, he has also been learning from the challenge of how to best communicate the functioning of kiteboarding. Which has led to a better understanding and improving of his own riding by keeping a 'never stop learning' mindset. He keeps enjoying the continued experience of Kite Trips, chasing waves for high jumps and strapless riding, sharing and discovering new horizons with fellow Kiteboarders.
The latest development have been the Foiling, both for Kite and Wing foiling. It is important for Fina Kiteboarding to follow the evolution of the sports in order to be able to offer the novelties to its customers. And finally, taking advantage of the wind and wave conditions in Tenerife, there is also a move toward Strapless Freestyle..
