The GWA Wingfoil World Tour crew are delighted to be back in Tarifa for the penultimate event of the 2022 season, where 48 men and 15 women have registered to participate in this pure Surf-Freestyle event. Read on for the report and video from the first day of action yesterday:
WOMEN’S ELIMINATIONS
Women’s Rounds 1 to 3 were first in sequence, where the wind was blowing around 15 to 18 knots. The women performed consistently well throughout each round, with all of the top seeds surviving unscathed and advancing to the quarter finals. They performed a solid variety of tricks including front and backside 3’s, raleys, toe-side frontside 3’s and air gybes. Tomorrow we will continue with the quarter finals, and the close run for the 2022 World Title between Paula Novotna and Nia Suardiez could possibly come to an end, if Paula Novotna were to win here in Tarifa. This would automatically make her our 2022 World Champion, but if Nia Suardiez were to win here, then it would all come down to the final event of the year in Brazil next month.
The most impressive female performance of the day was from our current leader, Paula Novotna, who has been training in Tarifa for several weeks already, and her hard work seems to have paid off. She achieved an overall heat score of 27.23 points which was substantially higher than the rest of the female fleet today.
WOMEN’S QUARTER FINAL LINE-UP:
Christina Koenig vs Flora Artzner
Isabel Triviño vs Nia Suardiaz
Manuela Jungo vs Bowien van der Linden
Maria Barro vs Paula Novotna
MEN’S ELMINATIONS
One big contender missing from this event is Balz Muller, who is unfortunately not here due to a recent injury he sustained. This opens the door to other athletes to advance further up the ladder and grab his current 2nd position in the general rankings.
The new generation of wingfoilers were hitting hard today, racking up some impressive scores to get the competition started. Malo Guenole was definitely in fine form, and his frontflip scored him 8.40 points. Another young gun, Chris Mac Donald was unstoppable during his heat, with his frontside 7 scoring an impressive 9 points, the highest score of the day.
The winners of each heat advanced directly to Round 3, and the other two competitors will receive a second chance in Round 2.
The wind dropped at 6pm, making heat 8 the final one of the day. The action will continue on Thursday!
We still have three more days of action ahead of us and hoping for a really big day today (Thursday) with the potential climax to the women’s competition, and possibly a world championship won…
Although we do not have a live stream for this event, we do have live scoring and live ticker where you can follow all of the action. Click here for event web site.
GWA WINGFOIL WORLD TOUR
Report: Gemma Hamaini
Photos: Samuel Cardenas
Videos: Julien Leleu
