France's Tom Pansard wins first Downwind Parawing World Cup in Leucate

Leucate opened a new race class for foiling when the first official Downwind Parawing World Cup ran from April 22 to 26, 2026, alongside the Mondial du Vent and the GWA Wingfoil World Tour. France’s Tom Pansard won the men’s title, Manon Dupé topped the women’s division, and the debut gave the sport its first real benchmark instead of a showcase lap.

The men’s competition was decided over six races, and Pansard had to beat a deep field to take the inaugural crown. Bastien Escofet finished second, Alan Fedit was third, and Axel Mazella placed fourth, with Luca Vuillermet, Balz Müller and the rest of the top 12 filling out a leaderboard that looked more like a mature circuit than a one-off experiment. The opening race on April 22 went to Luca Vuillermet, but Pansard’s consistency across the week turned that early flash into a title for the 17-year-old French rider.

The women’s side was just as telling. Dupé won the division and also finished first in the youth ranking, while Mae Haas and Viola Lippitsch completed the women’s podium. The youth standings also included Sofia Ginzinger of Tarifa, who was second in the junior order, showing that the first Parawing World Cup already had a pathway beyond the adult elite. That matters because new sports usually struggle to produce layered competition this quickly; Leucate did it from the start.

Duotone called the event a new chapter in competitive foiling, and the results backed up that claim. Team Duotone landed four podium spots in Leucate, a sign that brands are already treating Parawing as a serious development lane rather than a curiosity. Pansard said the win felt incredible, and the timing made the result even sharper: he is 17 and was set to sit an engineering entrance exam two days later. That mix of youth, speed and technical curiosity is exactly the kind of profile that can pull a discipline forward.

Leucate’s organizers have spent years positioning Leucate-La Franqui as a reference site for new watersports disciplines, and the setting paid off again here. The area generates more than 18 million euros in annual economic impact, which helps explain why world-first launches keep landing on the same stretch of French coast. For riders, Parawing now has a results sheet, a podium structure and a champion; for brands and event organizers, it has a format that can be measured, repeated and sold into the next season.