2023 GWA Wingfoil World Cup Dakhla Presented by Armstrong - Preview
by Ian MacKinnon 19 Sep 12:27 BST
22 September - 1 October 2023
GWA Wingfoil World Cup © Svetlana Romantsova
The battles for the first-ever world championship titles in the wave discipline of the GWA Wingfoil World Tour are finely balanced and will be decided at the third and concluding stop in Dakhla, Morocco.
With one win and one second each, Spain's Nia Suardiaz and the US's Moona Whyte are neck-and-neck with everything to play for going into the GWA Wingfoil World Cup Dakhla Presented by Armstrong.
The men's competition is more wide open with a handful of athletes capable of clinching the title in the ground-breaking discipline after stops in Ponta Preta, Cape Verde, and Rio de Janeiro's Saquarema break, in Brazil.
Many of the athletes have battled in the point-break at Oum Lambouir, a long right-hander with challenging hollow sections, when the GWA Wingfoil World Tour debuted there two years ago.
But the competition then was in the Surf-Freestyle and FreeFly-Slalom (formerly Surf-Slalom) disciplines, whereas the upcoming stop hosted by Dakhla Westpoint Hotel will be a purely wave surfing event.
Women locked together
Twenty-four men and nine women from 11 nations around the world are slated to vie for honours in the venue, with its dramatic backdrop of the Sahara desert.
The world champions in the wingfoil Wave discipline will be decided at the end of the competition which has a 10-day holding period to give the best chance of scoring wind and waves together. The competition will be staged simultaneously with a stop of our sister tour—the Qatar Airways GKA Kite World Tour.
In the women's competition, Whyte and 16-year-old Suardiaz, are locked together on top of the rankings after the American veteran and the Spaniard got one win apiece at each of the earlier stops. In Morocco, the woman who finishes ahead of the other at the event will win the title.
The remarkable Suardiaz is looking for a third successive crown this year after she closed out her first world championship titles in the Surf-Freestyle and FreeFly-Slalom disciplines with event wins in Hvide Sande, Denmark, earlier in the month.
"I'm feeling quite confident," said Suardiaz. "I still have to train a little bit on my wave skills. But I'm super-excited for the third stop in the waves. I'm really enjoying the waves, even though I don't have them at home. But I train in waves every opportunity I get."
Hard to call
The men's contest is hard to call. Cape Verde's Wesley Brito won the opening stop on home waters in Ponta Preta, but could not cement his lead in Saquarema and sits in third spot in the rankings.
France's Hugo Marin tops the rankings with several high-placed finishes, while his compatriot, SUP Surf world champion, Benoît Carpentier, lies in second overall.
Yet another Frenchman, the reigning Surf-Freestyle world champion, Malo Guénolé, 18, won in Saquarema but had missed the opening stop to complete school exams, is very much a contender but cannot win the crown.
"My goal in Dakhla is definitely to have fun," said Guénolé. "The most fun I can, because waves are super-sick. I don't think I'm in the running for the title, even if I won again. So, I'll just do my best. Waves are my favourite thing in wingfoiling, because I come from surfing. The Dakhla wave is really super-sick. So, I can't wait."