Dream big, fly high

I was born in the Outer Banks, North Carolina, USA. It’s an island on the Atlantic side of the country.

I was born right on the water, so it was very easy and accessible for me to be in and out of it. And of course, since my dad has been the legend in kite surfing that he is, I had no choice.

From the age of 18 months I was already kiting, not by myself of course, but between my dad’s legs and on his back.

We got some sponsors to create special wetsuits or a special board for me to sit. By the age of three, three and a half, I was kiting by myself! So I was quite young when I started.

Going back to my roots

My father is 100% Greek, but moved to the United States for college studies. There he met my mom, she is from New York, and they got married.

They moved to the Outer Banks for the wind and the sea, as my dad was originally a windsurfer, and then he discovered kite surfing.

Outer Banks, is the best place in the States for that kind of water sports and especially for kite surfing. My father is for kite surfing what Tony Hawk is for skateboard. A legend. He was actually one of the people that brought kite surfing to Europe. All kites and everything you see all over Europe is because of him.

I have an older sister and I actually have two moms, because my parents split when I was four. My dad got married again and his second wife, my stepmom, had a big part in my raising as well.

From the day I remember myself, every summer, I ‘ve been in Greece. The last three years, I am in Greece all the time.

My first memory from Greece isn’t exactly something nice.

I think I was around six years old, we were flying to Athens for summer holidays, when the airplane actually dropped 2.000 meters! It was quite scaring and something I still remember with horror!

In Athens we lived at my grandmother’s house at the north suburbs of Athens and after some days, we were going all together to Paros island.

My grandma was well known in the island and, although she has been dead for several years, people who meet me there even now, say that I look like her! They recognize me as her grandson, because we have the same hair!

Taking kite more seriously

As a child, apart from kite surfing I was playing a lot of football.  But then tennis came into my life and it was quite serious. I started tennis at 12 and when I was 14, we moved to Florida to pursue a career in this sport. So, I started taking part at professional tournaments.

But I stopped at the age of 16 because I realized that in tennis you’re such a small fish in a big ocean.

Meanwhile, kiting was being announced to be going as an event for the Olympics. It was first announced to be in the Youth Olympics in Buenos Aires in 2018.

I had returned for some days from Florida to my home in the Outer Banks.

We were sitting at the kitchen table and my stepmom told me «hey, did you hear the news about kite surfing and the Olympics? What do you think about that?». I replied «sure, let’s try it! If it’s freestyle and jumping I ‘ll definitely go, but if its racing? We have to think about it».

It turned out to be racing. I stopped tennis and focused on kiting.

In kiting I already had a big name, a legacy behind me, because of my father. I was already a big fish in the sport and not a little tiny one.

it’s hard for somebody that you know, somebody who raised you or somebody who you love, to coach you.

It’s hard for your father to coach you, it’s hard to coach your girlfriend or your son for example, your sister or your brother, because it’s just a different relationship.

So my father was never really my coach, but definitely a mentor through everything.

My father is not the type of guy to give you an advice, because he speaks his mind. He doesn’t really have a filter, so he’ll say some stuff that you maybe don’t really want to hear, but sometimes it’s good to hear!

My dad had a buddy in the Dominican Republic, who has already started training some guys for the racing, to take part at the Youth Olympics.

Within a week we went straight there and started training. I had also a teammate from Antigua and we were together in the whole thing.

Ηigh expectations, big disappointment 

Finally, we went to Youth Olympics in Buenos Aires and I competed under the flag of the United States of America. I got the 4th place in the ranking, which was really heartbreaking for me.

I was disappointed because I was in in silver medal for the whole entire week of the races and then it was decided that in the last race the winner takes it all. In that last race, I crash and disqualified. In the medal ceremony they gave a gold medal and two silver medals but no bronze!

After that, missing by this way a medal in the Junior Olympics, I didn’t want to kite anymore. I said to myself, I was done with kiting.

I suffered a burnout. Being pushed by my dad and by other people to perform so professionally at such a young age was quite hard!

I was 16-17 and have fell short of a dream that I was working so hard for. It was really tough. I just wanted to be a kid and live my life as a normal teenager.

So, I ended up doing my senior high school year back home in the Outer Banks. Me and my dad had a falling out so we didn’t speak for about the next four years. I also didn’t touch a kite for these four years.

I went to the University to study Mechanical Engineering because meanwhile I was working part-time as a metal welder.

I do believe that everything happens for a reason. I’m a very strong believer of that.

But something that I do regret, is that sometimes we get distracted from what matters in life. Family is what matters the most in life. And you can never get back the time that you throw away.

So this is something that I really regret. Me and my dad had a big falling out, I lost connection with that whole side of my family, my dad, my stepmom.

Working process to get connected again was tough. One day, you realize that some people aren’t going to change. So you have to be the bigger person, change and adjust to that because in the end, four years were gone and it’s a really long time.

The return

I came back to Greece with my dad in 2022 and got back on the foil.

I kite first time again in Oropos beach, Attica, and I felt like… when you’re obsessed with something again and you know that you missed it a lot for so long. I was doing it again! I had a crazy drive for it again, I remembered how much I loved it.

But I was out for four years and the Olympics qualification was only one and a half year away!

Kite surfing for me definitely means a lot more than it would for other professional athletes in other sports, just because I’ve done it so much and I’ve been involved with the development of the sport for so long.

It’s more of a lifestyle for me than it is a career or sport. It’s a way of life.  We, as people, come from… water originally. And so, I feel like that’s where I belong.

If you were saying «I’m a kite surfer» in 2020, most of the people wouldn’t know what you’re talking about. But now when you say this, they know exactly what you’re talking about. So the sport has grown.

Not necessarily because of the Olympics, but also because of the social media, internet and more.

So we come to a point that in Europe now, it’s actually much more popular than it is in the States. If you take a look at the rankings of the high level competitions, all of the really strong athletes are from Europe.

In Greece we have a lot of kite surfers, a lot of recreational kite surfers, not necessarily professionals.

We have quite a few kite surfers actually, compared to some other countries, but regarding Formula Kite in the Olympic class, we don’t have so many.

So, I’m trying to grow the sport in Greece a little bit more because it’s good to see new people come up and get involved.

I also previously preferred freestyle, I admit that. But now, going so fast on the water with Formula Kites, is such a crazy thing!

Also, you really have to use your brain in the competitions and the races. Now, I love racing much more than freestyle.

In Greece, we have a lot of people who get involved with water sports, but they don’t do it in a professional way.

This happens, because it’s not easy to fund professional athletes. Actually, is really hard. Nobody help you, you have to help yourself and survive.

So, that summer of 2022 that I started all over again, it was announced the first Greek Championship ever for Formula Kite, hosted in Drepano, outside the city of Patras.

There were participants from Greece, Bulgaria, France and Antigua. I got the 2nd place there.

And then right after that, we had the European Championships just across the water, in Nafpaktos. I participated in these two events against professional athletes who were training for the last 3.5 years full on, while I was just back in the business.

I was just getting back into it again and everybody was much better than me. So nobody thought I had a chance to qualify for the Olympics, but I knew I could do it.

If you don’t compete under a certain flag for four years, you can switch countries as long as you hold the nationality. I am a Greek citizen and American citizen as well.

So I went full on into it for a year and a half, got improved and made huge wins. All this ended up by qualifying for the Olympics for Greece!

There were three qualification rounds. The first was in the Netherlands, a year after I first started competing again. The Top-8 countries qualified and I was the 11th country. I missed that.

About three months after that, we had the European qualifiers in England.

I didn’t qualify at that one either, but I was starting to reach a really good level.

Last chance for me was the Regatta that was held in Hyeres, France. The Top-5 were about to get the spot for the Olympics and I got the 3rd place. It was a unique feeling!

The Olympic Games’ experience

Since Paris has no sea around, these sports of the Olympic Games were held in satellite venues, sailing in Marseille and surfing in Tahiti, French Polynesia.

All sailors who wanted to participate at the Opening ceremony, took a train that was only for the athletes, from Marseille to Paris. The security measures from the Organizing Committee during this trip, were amazing.

This was a super-fast train! Its’ more than 850 kilometers from one city to the other, and it took around three hours to get there! It was crazy!

Personally, I never really had a doubt if I wanted to live the experience or not. This is a chance of a lifetime, especially with this unique ceremony, in the boats at the Seine river.

The first thought I made at this time was «holy shit, I made it!». Being in the same boat and waving the Greek flag, along with some incredible Greek athletes, like Giannis Antetokounmpo, Maria Sakkari, or Stefanos Tsitsipas and many many more, is a feeling that can’t be described in words. I had the opportunity to talk to these people, who are just normal human beings!

The Greek boat opens the Olympic Parade, it’s the first in the row, so we lived the experience five times more than any of the other people did. The fireworks, the bridge coming up and the spraying water! It was really cool experience.

Future plans

In my sport, every year there’s a World Championship and a European Championship.

Those are the two biggest events. But also we have lots of other important competitions, like «Princess Sofia» Regatta in Palma de Mallorca, or the Hyeres Regatta in the south of France.

Furthermore, we have a ton of other competitions, that gives you points to build your place in the world ranking. The end goal, is to qualify for the Olympics.

It’s a full time job, I’m getting paid to do it. Maybe some people might think of it as a dream job, but it’s super stressful and takes a lot of hard work, focus and determination to achieve goals, since it demands a lot of money.

In these four years between the Olympics, we have sponsors to keep with the results we get. We are building our reputation, by pursuing European and World titles.

At the end of this first year of this quad, being a bronze medalist in the European Championship that took place in Turkey, makes me really happy. It’s a first step.

I am optimistic, my main goal isn’t just to be in the next Olympics, but to win them.

Everybody around me, my whole team, we all think that it’s very possible.

You just have to have the right discipline, you have to have the right people around you and you have to have the right schedule and planning. Everything for everything to fall in place.

The thing that sucked for me about the Paris Olympics is that we only had six races, all of them in super light winds and I may got the 11th place, but I was only one point away from the top ten.

If I made practice for only 1.5 years and achieved that, now that I am more focused and professional for the whole quad, I can go even higher!

Comparing to Paris, I have more than twice the amount of time to prepare and qualify. The main focus now is to qualify for the Olympic Games 2028 in Los Angeles, but then after that, it’s to get a medal.

I am a Greek American, it would be something super special to represent Greece in the Olympic games hosted in the United States. Greece is my home country, it’s where I belong. I’ll probably be living here forever.

But I’m an American also, I have a lot of the American culture.

I can connect with a lot of people in the United States. I know exactly how things and people work there, but I also can connect to the big Greek community of the USA.

That gives me an advantage, since I am going to represent my one country in my other country. It’s weird feeling, but it’s also a really good feeling.

I am looking forward to it!

Cameron Maramenides is a kitesurfing Champion.

Editor: Αλέξανδρος Σωτηρόπουλος

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