Cause for optimism for S’pore kitefoiler Maximilian Maeder ahead of 2026 season

SINGAPORE – As he gears up for his 2026 season, Singapore kitefoiler Maximilian Maeder has cause for optimism, having spent his first pre-season under Swiss coach Matthieu Girolet.

In a positive sign, the 19-year-old won a test event in January for the next World Sailing Championships, which will take place in Fortaleza, Brazil in 2027.

Ahead of his first major event for 2026 – the March 27-April 4 Trofeo Princesa Sofia in Palma, Spain – the two-time world champion is encouraged by the progress he and his team have made over the winter.

Over the last few months, the teenager has been refining various technical aspects with Girolet, whom he began training with in mid-2025.

On what he worked on, Maeder said: “We worked a lot on our clarity with it (speed) – what exactly are we doing and being very clear with the processes of things like the reason we do things, why we do them, or how we do them, in order to be able to train individual steps of the movement to be much better and be more consistent in delivering what’s needed every single time.

“The clearer you are with how the movement works and how you’re supposed to execute everything – not just travelling in a straight line – because an important part of speed is actually your transition.

“So when you turn or you change direction, accelerating through that is also super, super important, so we also focus on that as well, all our turns and manoeuvres and those movements.”

He has also continued honing his mindset to focus on performances instead of results, with the belief that the former will lead to the latter.

The Paris Olympics bronze medallist said: “Funnily enough, if you focus on results, your results will turn out worse. If you focus on performing, your results will turn out better.

“For being able to perform well, you care about your performance, so then you have to learn how to focus only on that so it was a very intentional change.

“Now I go into a season and I look for performance, not for results. In the sense that how well do I execute? How well did I do things that are within my capability of doing?”

The key event for Maeder in 2026 is the Formula Kite World Championships, which will take place in Viana do Castelo, Portugal in May.

Maeder, who took silver at the 2025 edition of the event, will not be defending his title at the Asian Games, following kitefoiling’s omission from the Sept 19-Oct 4 event.

“It’s a shame that I don’t get to go there again, but I don’t have any strong feelings about it, it’s not up to me to decide where kitefoiling is chosen to be held as an event,” said Maeder, who was one of Singapore’s three gold medallists at the Hangzhou Asiad in 2023.

“Of course, the more the merrier, and I’m more than happy to put in my effort to help kitefoiling grow as a sport and grow in profile and maybe be included in more events, but I can’t decide where it’s going to be held.”

The Olympic classes featuring in this year’s Asiad programme are the ILCA 6, ILCA 7, men’s and women’s iQFoil, 49er, 49erFX and the mixed 470 dinghy events.

Other events – the boys’ and girls’ iQFoil youth, ILCA 4 and 29er, and youth mixed dinghy – contested at the quadrennial competition fall under the youth classes.

Maeder’s sights are set firmly on the 2028 Olympics, and is not allowing himself to be distracted by kitefoiling’s future in the quadrennial showpiece beyond the Los Angeles Games.

Under World Sailing’s regulations, at least four Olympic events undergo review every four years.

At the world governing body’s 2025 annual conference, its general assembly voted to place the men’s kite, women’s kite, mixed dinghy and mixed multihull under review.

Maeder said: “All I see is LA 2028, that’s what I’m focusing on. I’m currently in the 2028 campaign and I’m well under way for that.”