Winners in FreeFly-Slalom and Surf-Freestyle disciplines to be crowned at one-stop GWA Youth World Championships
GWA Youth Wingfoil World Championships La Palma, Canary Islands
27-30 June, 2024
The GWA Youth Wingfoil World Championships are set to land in La Palma, the Canary Islands, for the second successive year, when the teenage winners in the Surf-Freestyle and FreeFly-Slalom disciplines will be crowned world champions.
The dramatic volcanic backdrop of La Palma, with its steady strong breezes, will play host to the one-stop world championships, with crowns up for grabs in the male and female U14, U16, and U19 divisions.
The reigning senior Surf-Freestyle world champions, Spain’s Nia Suardiaz and the US’s Christopher MacDonald, who won the U19 Surf-Freestyle crowns last year, are still eligible to compete and will likely defend their titles in La Palma.
The GWA Youth Wingfoil World Championships La Palma is back in Spain’s Canary Islands for the second one-stop world championships following the success of last year’s Youth title races.
Making waves
To be eligible for each age category, the young athletes must be below the age threshold for the whole of this year.
For instance, to gain entry to the U14 age group, the rider must be 13 years old or below for the whole of 2024. For U16, they must be 15 or below all of this year, and in the U19, they must be 18 or less all throughout this entire calendar year.
World titles will be awarded in each discipline in each age category, unless there are insufficient entries in any particular category when the young riders will move up to the next age band.
In the men’s U19 Surf-Freestyle and FreeFly-Slalom disciplines, the Corsican rider, Noé Cuyala (FRA), finished third in both disciplines last year in La Palma. But Cuyala, still 16, has been making waves on the senior tour with a second in Leucate, France, in Surf-Freestyle, in early April.
A class apart
But Cuyala will now be up against a strong roster of other young talent, like the French duo of Clément Hamon and Axel Gerard, who won the U16 FreeFly-Slalom and Surf-Freestyle titles respectively. Both also compete on the senior tour and move up an age category this year.
Another French teenager, Luca Vuillermet, 14, has been battling on the GWA Wingfoil World Tour and will compete in the U16 age categories. Britain’s Leon Schiel, also 14, moves up an age category to U16.
In the women’s U19, it is difficult to imagine anyone getting the better of double world champion, Nia Suardiaz. She was in a league of her own on the senior tour, but the young riders will be keen to benchmark their progress against the best in the world.
Be sure to catch up on how it goes down in La Palma. Read the event recap here, and find all the event information here.
words: Ian MacKinnon
images: Samuel Cárdenas
