TEAM NEWS: INTENSE BATTLES, INNOVATIONS AND CLOSE CALLS IN TARIFA

The second stop of the Surf-Freestyle tour has witnessed next level performance from the entire field and an unprecedented number of contenders for the top honours.

Strong performances by all of the GONG team were highlighted by Bastien Escofet’s 3rd overall finish at the Tarifa Wing Pro. Team athletes Malo Guenole, Bastien Escofet, Max Robinson, Francesco Cappuzzo, and Clement Hamon battled it out against some of the best wingfoil athletes in the world over the past 2 days to try to solidify themselves as contenders on the world tour. With everyone on the team already having solid overall rankings, this meant all the GONG athletes were pre-seeded into round 3 where the Top 24 out of 28 athletes of the event battle it out for top honours. Advancing directly into the quarter finals (round 5) was Malo Guenole after a nailbiter which saw him win his heat with a Back Mobe for his last trick attempt against his two opponents Ricardo Zorzi and Leo Suardiaz, while the rest of the team had to battle it out in the repechage round 4 after not being able to take the top spots in their heats of 3.

From round 4 onwards, the top 2 out of 4 athletes in each heat were advancing. Moving through to round 5 joining Guenole was Escofet and Hamon with both athletes winning their heats by healthy margins acquiring heat totals of 22.33 and 25.51 out of a possible 30 for 3 counting tricks. These were the highest scores of round 4. Unfortunately, their teammates Cappuzzo and Robinson couldn’t find the form they needed to move on to the quarter finals.

In the Quarters, the remaining GONG athletes continued to charge ahead with Bastien Escofet landing a clutch Backloop Spin Frontside 360 scoring 8.83 giving him a similar total of 22.26 to move him on to the semis knocking out the high ranked Alan Fedit and the well performing Alex Archerer, while Guenole and Hamon followed up with their highest scoring heats of the day which included a big 9.0 from Malo for an innovation maneuver giving him a heat total of 26.06, while Clement also had another lights out performance scoring a 9.0 for a Backloop Spin Frontside 360 and acquiring a heat total of 25.90 securing 3 spots out of 8 for the GONG team for the two semi-final heats.

The first semi-final included Clement Hamon along with Luca Vuillermet, Axel Gerard, and Xavi Corr, a stacked heat that seemingly could have gone any which way. The top 3 were separated by 0.65 points and although Hamon landed a planing backloop spin frontside 360 scoring another 9, he drew the short straw in the end and missed out on the final by 0.3 points to Gerard and Corr finishing the event in 5th place being squeezed out by Corr on a final innovation maneuver.

The next semi-final saw Malo and Bastien go up against Tomas Acherer and reigning world champion Christopher McDonald. Massive heat scores were thrown down by all the athletes but it was McDonald and Escofet edging out Guenole with Bastien landing one of the biggest scoring moves of the event with a 9.53 Back Mobe 360 giving him a heat total of 26.93 over Malo’s 25.49 which pushed Malo into a tied 5th with his GONG team mate Clement Hamon ending his event.

GONG athlete Bastien Escofet was joined by Xavi Corr, Axel Gerard, and Christopher Macdonald in a final that started slow for all the athletes with multiple crashes and lower scoring moves performed for the competing athletes standards. But once nerves started to settle Bastien was able to take 3rd overall and secured his first podium of the season with a heat total of 24.20 highlighted by an impressive 8.87 Back Mobe just behind Axel Gerard, while MacDonald took the win.

A huge congratulations to Bastien Escofet for his podium finish and to all of the GONG team with an impressive 3 athletes in the top 6 for this event!