GWA Wingfoil European Championships get underway in Brest - Day 1
by Gemma Hamaini 4 May 10:45 BST
GWA Wingfoil European Championships, day 1 © Christian Guzman
Brest, France hosts the GWA Wingfoil European Championships this week, where we have 33 men and 4 women registered to compete in both the FreeFly-Slalom and Surf-Freestyle disciplines.
- The GWA European Championships will have both FreeFly-Slalom and Surf-Freestyle disciplines.
- The forecast looks fantastic for the 5 upcoming days of action.
- Today we completed 1 full elimination for the men and 4 eliminations for the women, with Bastien Escofet and Flora Artzner leading the rankings so far.
Women's Eliminations
Flora Artzner had a flying start in Women's Elimination 1. She was unstoppable as she dominated the race course, gaining a very strong lead. Flora maintained her lead all the way through until the pump section where Orane Ceris took a better angle and overtook her, sailing through the finish line in first position. Flora Artzner settled for second, followed by Sonia Bouteiller and Charlotte Baruzzi.
Women's Elimination 2 saw Flora Artzner get another perfect start and this time she managed to maintain her lead throughout the entire course, gaining her first elimination win of the day. She continued building upon her strong performance winning another 2 eliminations, making this a very positive comeback for her first GWA event of the 2023 season.
Elimination 5 was cancelled due to a drop in wind conditions. Flora Artzner currently leads with three wins, and Orane Ceris in 2nd with one win.
Men's Eliminations
Men's elimination 1 saw all of the top seeds make a strong start to the proceedings. For the final, Bastien Escofet took the lead at the start, with the rest of the pack close behind him. However, after the second mark, he picked up pace and gained a very solid lead and was unstoppable for the remainder of the course, claiming the opening bullet. Francesco Cappuzzo pushed hard and advanced to finish in second followed by Benjamin May in third.
Men's elimination 2 was completed all the way up to the finals, where Bastien Escofet looked set lock down another win, leading the pack all the way to the final reach. However he went down at the last mark due to the drop in wind, as did rest of the fleet behind him. Noe Cuyala managed to advance and cross the finish line in first, however the heat was finally cancelled, much to his disappointment. The elimination 2 finals will continue later in the week.
We still have five days of competition remaining and very good forecast. There will be plenty more FreeFly-Slalom and Surf-Freestyle action to come, so stay tuned.