GWA Wingfoil World Cup New Zealand
FreeFly Slalom final was held on the final day: Bastien Escofet (FRA) and Nia Suardiaz (ESP) were crowned the FreeFly Slalom winners for this first event of the season.
Reigning world champion James Carew was dumped from the GKA Kite-Surf World Cup on the second day of the contest on Cape Verde in epic waves. The Australian, who had been hoping to land a third successive title, lost the final round of the day by only a fraction of a point to Cape Verde-based legend, Airton Cozzolino. The victory of Cozzolino, an Italian who calls the island home, drew wild cheering from the delighted crowds on the beach. But the celebrations were muted as the judges reviewed their scores because the heat had been so tight. Both riders, who have been training together, embraced as they came ashore. It was a sign of their mutual respect after a truly spectacular, 18-minute clash on epic Ponta Preta swells in the sinking sun. The tense drama, with the pair separated only by 0.13 of a point in the end, was worthy of a final. Yet, Cozzolino only has the privilege of advancing to the competition’s quarter finals where other Cape Verdean locals lie in wait.
The competition is set to move to the quarter finals stage for the men and women on Sunday, with hope of completing both finals.
The mens final was a showdown between two of the youngest riders on tour. Our current World Champion Malo Guenole vs Chris Mac Donald. Both went trick for trick, with Chris opening with a 7.43 point Back Flip. Malo responded with an outstanding 8.63 point Front Side 7. Chris continued building scores, nailing a Front Side 7 and Front Flip, and just managed to steal the win from Mal by 0.8 points. An incredible final from two of the strongest athletes on tour.
The womens final consisted of two of our strongest riders, Nia Suardiaz and Bowien van der Linden were matched up for an intense heat. Nia achieved three solid scores and managed to gain an advantage over Bowien, allowing her to claim her first event win of the 2023 season.
On Sunday, March 12, 2023, more than 14,000 athletes will compete in the 53rd edition of the Engadin Skimarathon, the second largest cross-country skiing event in the world and the largest cross-country skiing event in Switzerland. Among the large crowd of participants are also world-class runners.
What awaits them on this day in the high valley are 42 strenuous kilometers over frozen lakes, past typical Engadine villages and through a picturesque Swiss Alpine landscape. The best will complete the course in a time of around 1.5 hours.
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The journey for a later Freeride World Tour career starts with valuable points in the 1 and 2 star contests. The "bowl-like" wide face of the Wiedersberger Horn is described in the scene as the optimal terrain for fast, playful runs. In between you will always find one or the other cliff, which brings valuable points for the final result.
Reigning world champion James Carew was dumped from the GKA Kite-Surf World Cup on the second day of the contest on Cape Verde in epic waves. The Australian, who had been hoping to land a third successive title, lost the final round of the day by only a fraction of a point to Cape Verde-based legend, Airton Cozzolino. The victory of Cozzolino, an Italian who calls the island home, drew wild cheering from the delighted crowds on the beach. But the celebrations were muted as the judges reviewed their scores because the heat had been so tight. Both riders, who have been training together, embraced as they came ashore. It was a sign of their mutual respect after a truly spectacular, 18-minute clash on epic Ponta Preta swells in the sinking sun. The tense drama, with the pair separated only by 0.13 of a point in the end, was worthy of a final. Yet, Cozzolino only has the privilege of advancing to the competition’s quarter finals where other Cape Verdean locals lie in wait.
The competition is set to move to the quarter finals stage for the men and women on Sunday, with hope of completing both finals.
Winner Women and World Champion: Mikaili Sol (BRA)
Retaining her title to become the Qatar Airways GKA Freestyle-Kite Women's World Champion 2022, Mika is a truly dominant force in the sport at the moment and now has six kiteboarding world titles. Already far enough ahead in the final to be assured of reclaiming her crown, Mika's grabbed Stalefish Slim 5 on trick six had all of her most unique traits about it – full entry and exit power, technical brilliance and style, and scored a huge 9.0 from the judges, contributing to her commanding 31.67 overall heat score.
2nd Place Women: Bruna Kajiya (BRA) and 3rd Place Women: Rita Arnaus (ESP)
1st Place Men: Gianmaria Coccoluto (ITA) demonstrated to the world at this event exactly how freestyle kiteboarding should be performed. Utilising the perfect conditions of Taiba, the Italian put on a spectacular and progressive display of riding throughout every heat and his performances included the highest heat score ever on the GKA Kite World Tour, with 38.74 points from four tricks in the quarter final. Although Maxime Chabloz came close to stealing the event win in the dying moments of the final, Gianmaria is the new and much deserving Qatar Airways GKA Freestyle-Kite Men's World Champion, having proved himself as the ultimate freestyler in the ultimate location against the ultimate field.
2nd Place Men: Maxime Chabloz (SUI), a unique multi-discipline competitor. 3rd Place Men: Erick Anderson (BRA), a local hero.
The group that was to fight for the stage at the end consisted of Georg Egger, Martin Frey (Singer Racing Team), Martin Stosek (Canyon Northwave), Marc Stutzman (Canyon Northwave), Andreas Seewald (Canyon Northwave), Krzysztof Lukasik (JBG2 Cryospace) and Wout Alleman (Wilier-Pirelli). On the final climb, the race was blown up again by Egger's push. Only Frey and Seewald held on and it came down to a sprint of the three, which Frey won, while Egger came second and Seewald completed the all-German podium. With this result Egger took the lead and there was a radical change in the remaining top 10 places: Seewald moved up to second place, although he was already more than 3 minutes behind his compatriot.
In the women's race, the decision seemed to be in favour of Laura Daubermann (Trek Future Racing) after she had won the first two stages and had a lead of almost 7 minutes in the overall classification. But Janina Wust (Buff-Megamo) never gave up. The Swiss decided the race for herself and only Daubermann could stay with her. Not only did she miss the stage podium, but she also had to watch her lead in the overall standings shrink to just over a minute. With one stage to go, the overall standings are still completely open.
The women's final was hard to beat in terms of excitement. In the end, it was a battle between last year's world champion Mikaili Sol (USA) and the experienced Bruna Kajiya (BRA), which the Brazilian finally won with her mix of experience and style. Louka Pitot (FRA) did not have an easy task ahead of him in the men's final, where he was up against three former world champions Carlos Mario (BRA), Valentin Rodriguez (COL) and Gianmaria Coccoluto (ITA). In the end, the pressure seemed too much for the young Frenchman, so that Coccoluto and Mario decided the victory between themselves. Coccoluto was able to win the fight by a narrow margin of only half a point and thus starts his season as defending champion with a victory in Qatar.
Making it through as top performers in the men’s division, we can’t look past the Brazilians Manoel Soares and Carlos Mario, clearly at home in these lagoon and warm wind conditions. They were the only two riders to break 30 point heat scores – with relentlessly smooth technicality. Just before the Brazilians ended the day on a high, yesterday's challenger, Gianmaria Coccoluto, held off Arthur Guillebert, Adeuri Corniel and Robin Goetebuer in his quarterfinal. Swiss star Maxime Chabloz was challenged in the quarterfinals by German Finn Flugal, who is only 13 years old. The young teenager put up an impressive fight, but failed to reach the 5.90 on his seventh and final trick attempt, which he needed to put Maxime under pressure again and secure second place.
In the women's event, Bruna Kajiya achieved the highest score of the day (22.73) and won the first round thanks to an amazingly close chance just before the end, which she somehow held on to with 7.30 points! Nathalie Lambrecht unfortunately lost to Bruna in this round, but managed to beat Alexandra Torres and Estefania Rosa in her subsequent individual round and was the second highest scorer of the day with 19.33.
Day 2 showed a true battle of the generations, as the more experienced wingfoilers did their best to stand their ground as a whole new fleet of young riders came in to give them a run for their money.
Women: The strong levante started to kick in at the start of the women's quarter finals, reaching up to 25 knots. Experience in these tough Tarifa conditions, together with consistency proved to be key elements to advancing through this round. There were no surprises as all of our top seeded riders advanced through this round to the semi-finals. Nia Suardiaz, Paula Novotna, Flora Artzner and Bowien van der Linden all remained in the competition for an opportunity to take the win at this event. Bowien put on the best female performance of the day, with her toeside frontside 3 scoring her 5.30 points.
Men: There were some stand-out performances for round 2, particularly from the younger riders who showed amazing determination and capability in the strong, difficult conditions. Axel Gerard rode a great heat, landing a 6.30 point front flip that allowed him to advance to Round 3. River Moore, 14 year old local rider, lost a very close heat with Xavi Corr in Round 1, so for Round 2 he showed even more determination, closing his heat with an impressive backflip scoring 7 points and giving him the opportunity to remain in the competition for Round 3. The highest scoring heat of Round 2 went to Frenchman Bastien Escofet, who achieved an overall score of 8.30 for his spectacular front flip. Round 2 finished with an outstanding performance from one of the youngest local riders, Nathan Berger, who defeated Riccardo Zorzi with an unstoppable display of riding which included a massive frontside 7 scoring him 8.4 points and allowing him a well-deserved spot in Round 3.
The wind unfortunately dropped during the final heat of round 2, which will be continued tomorrow, as the levante wind is once again in the forecast for the coming days.
River Moore is a local 14 year old competitor who is competing at a World Cup event for the first time here at his home spot. "To compete here at my home spot is just incredible", said River. "The wind today has been tricky, and it definitely picked up throughout the day. I just missed out on my first heat, but in my second heat I was fully powered on my 3 meter wing, and managed to land my tricks. The thing with wingfoiling is that we have race and freestyle, and it's always fast no matter what. You can go high, the landings are awesome, and it's just a great sport. It's bringing a community together, joining people from kitesurfing and windsurfing together."
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