Who is Alexander James Lewis-Hughes???
Who is Alexander James Lewis-Hughes??? Get to know a little more about Alex and what he’s been getting up to… recently spotted hiding out in Cape Town in search of wind, waves and ramps.
Alex recently joined the Ozone team, snapping up the cover on Kiteworld Issue #61 riding the C4 in New Caledonia. Check out his team profile page here. Throughout the year Alex will be judging all the PKRA world tour events, and also throwing some photo and video content our way, so stay tuned…
Cheers
Team Ozone
Well first of all, YES - that is my real name not an alias or some made up bullsh*t as most people expect it is…So who am I???
I grew up in a small town on the North Coast of NSW Australia. I was just a regular kid (still am haha), in a normal average family. We weren’t by any means rich in a monetary sense, but I learnt to surf at an early age and went on later to learn to windsurf and skateboard. I picked up kiting in around 2002 when I finally had enough cash scraped together to buy my first kite (2001 Cabrinha Black tip 15.5m projected area (21m flat)). This was probably the worst kite a shop could have ever sold a sub 50kg kid, I couldn’t even kite if there were whitecaps on the water!!!… However I was hooked from that point on and I’ve been ktiting ever since.
I started judging some Australian competitions after getting tired with competing myself. I was 3 times National Junior Wavesailing and Mambo junior champion in the early days and won a host of other events later on after learning to kite, including the Tannum Sands and Bowen Coconet Classics (which were to this day the highest paid competitions in Australia haha). Later on I basically met the right people and was in the right place and ended up as a judge for the Professional Kite Riders Association (PKRA) world tour.
I love to ride a board sideways and I’m not too concerned about when or how I’m doing it. I’m not afraid to mix it up and I’m always looking at the conditions and usually end up doing whatever is best on a given day. People some times say to me “Why don’t you just stick to one thing and you might actually be good at it”… Truth is I don’t think I could, there’s too much fun to be had doing everything you can and if I just did one board-sport or kite-style all the time I would be totally sick of it!
I’ve just signed with Ozone international. Most people know me for my wake style of kiteboarding, but I plan on making videos for Ozone with a range of different conditions and styles on display. Wakeskate, surfboard and wakeboard are the things I like riding most and you can expect to see these feature heavily in my new productions.
I’m stoked to be riding Ozone not only because I like the equipment but also because for me it’s like a close family. Some of my best friends that kite ride and work for Ozone - Torrin Bright, Andy Yates and I’m stoked that they would also support people like Marek Murphy and Jake Kelsick. Having such great support is what makes everything easy for me and I couldn’t do what I’m doing now without Ozones support and the support of Steve McCormack (Ozone AUS) who ultimately helped me get to where I am now!
Thanks to all the Ozone crew, Kitepower, SurfFX, Ian Graham, Ash Wooley. Also a big thanks to Eric Groenewoud, for supporting me for 8 or so years! Thanks for believing in me! and finally to my family - especially to my father who has helped me beyond the norm over all these years and also my amazing girlfriend Karolina.
Cheers for everything guys, I couldn’t have done it without you all!
Alex.
p.s. If you’re interested in what I’m doing, or thinking about check my blog out - www.howareya.wordpress.com
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