Mathis Ghio of France and Maddalena Spanu of Italy are crowned winners of the first ever Formula Wingfoil World Championships.
The final day breeze in Cagliari, Sardinia, took some time to materialise and with time running out, the long distance Golden Ticket race had to be cancelled and the focus went instead to the knock-out rounds.
As the 5pm cutoff approached the wind roared back in again from a completely different direction, with a strong, gusty Mistral from the north.
In the women’s final, Emilia Kosti GRE won the first final race. In the second race Spanu had the slimmest of leads and held on for the final downwind leg and burst across the finish line, the 18 year old taking victory and becoming the first ever women’s Formula Wing World Champion.
Silver went to Vaina Picot FRA and bronze to Kosti.
In the men’s final, Sean Herbert NZL took the first final race. Francesco Cappuzzo ITA took the second win to tie with Ghio, but winning on tiebreak.
In the third race Alessandro Tomasi ITA just got ahead of Ghio before the finish, but was given a points penalty for hitting a mark earlier in the race, making Ghio the race winner and first ever men’s Formula Wing World Champion.
Cappuzzo took silver, Herbert the bronze.
Formula Wing Medal Series Men (71 entries)
Gold FRA 45 Mathis Ghio
Silver ITA 33 Francesco Cappuzzo
Bronze NZL 73 Sean Herbert
4th ITA 30 Alessandro Jose Tomasi
Formula Wing Medal Series Women (20 entries)
Gold ITA 114 Maddalena Spanu
Silver FRA 100 Vaina Picot
Bronze GRE 120 Aimilia Kosti
4th POL 103 Karolina Kluszczynska
