Day 5 of the Catalunya PWA World Cup and an exciting afternoon experimenting with Foil Slalom while Thomas Goyard extends his event lead heading into the final day.
The opening race of the day saw Thomas Goyard dominate another full fleet elimination, but with the second discard in the bag, the decision was made to experiment a little with the options for Foiling.
That led to the first Foil Slalom course on the world tour being completed, which saw 16 men lining up in the semifinals with the top 8 guys advancing.
The switch to the Slalom course proved to be popular with many sailors, but there were also a few displeased faces, however from a spectators points of view the switch provided more excitement with more intense and close-quarters racing.
Moving forwards it looks like it would be interesting to have Foil Slalom held in lighter airs – around 14 knots and under, while switching to the upwind and downwind courses in anything above that would produce a great platform for finding the best overall Foiler.
However, that is probably unlikely with regular Slalom obviously coming into play at that point – unless Foil only events were to arise.
Thomas Goyard will head into the final Sunday of the event with a healthy lead – 16.7 points to be exact.
After claiming his third win of the week in Elimination 7 and then finishing 9th in the first Foil Slalom Elimination, which he currently discards, Goyard has counting results of 1st, 1st, 1st, 2nd, 4th and 4th.
Julien Bontemps remains in second place on 28.7 points – and the Frenchman could find himself right back in contention for the event title if he can maintain his incredibly consistent form
The top 3 remains unchanged from overnight with Nicolas Goyard still in third place. Goyard was level with Bontemps on 22.7 points, but he now trails Bontemps by 5 points after two 12th place finishes.
Current Ranking 2019 Catalunya PWA World Cup – Men’s Foil
*After 8 Eliminations
1st Thomas Goyard (FRA – FMX Racing / Phantom Sails / Phantom Foils)
2nd Julien Bontemps (FRA – JP / NeilPryde)
3rd Nicolas Goyard (FRA – Tabou / GA Sails / Phantom Foils)
4th Gonzalo Costa Hoevel (ARG – Starboard / Severne / Starboard Foil)
5th Mateus Isaac (BRA – JP / NeilPryde)
6th Matteo Iachino (ITA – Starboard / Severne / Starboard Foil)
7th Amado Vrieswijk (NB – JP / Severne / Starboard Foil)
8th Alexandre Cousin (FRA – Patrik / Phantom Sails / Phantom Foils)
9th Sebastian Kornum (DEN – JP / NeilPryde)
10th Kiran Badloe (NED – Starboard / Severne / Starboard Foil)
GBR:
25th Ross Williams (GBR – GA Sails, Tabou Boards, Shamal Sunglasses)
