Garda Trentino Foil Days opens with racing and demos at Torbole

The RRD One Hour Classic gave Garda Trentino Foil Days its sharpest edge: one-hour racing forced riders to manage endurance, gear reliability and tactical pacing, while giving spectators a format that was easy to follow but hard to master. At Circolo Surf Torbole, the first edition of the foil-focused event opened with the kind of practical, wind-driven competition that can make a festival feel like a real test of equipment and skill rather than a simple showcase.

The four-day program ran from June 18 to 21 in Torbole sul Garda and mixed competitions with equipment testing, meetings with industry professionals and entertainment. The event village was open to the public, underscoring Garda Trentino’s effort to turn a race weekend into a broader watersports gathering. The headline races were the One Hour Classic Fin & Foil and the One Hour Wing, a pairing that reflected how the region now treats foiling and wingfoil as part of the same growing ecosystem rather than separate niches.

That approach fits Torbole. Garda Trentino’s own tourism materials describe the lake’s winds around Riva del Garda and Torbole sul Garda as unusually strong and consistent, with a north wind in the morning and the Ora from the south in the afternoon. Those conditions have long made the area one of Europe’s best-known destinations for windsurfing, wingfoil and sailing, and they also explain why the venue keeps drawing athletes, brands and visiting fans into the same shoreline corridor.

The history behind the race matters almost as much as the new branding. Circolo Surf Torbole was founded in 1978, and the RRD One Hour Classic dates to 1989, when Helgo Lass and Peter Mutzlinger launched it on Garda Trentino. The race opened to windsurf foil in 2018, giving the old format a modern second life as foiling moved from fringe experiment to competitive mainstay. That is also why the 2026 edition was framed as an important step in the event’s history rather than a one-off addition to the summer calendar.

On the water, the results gave the debut immediate credibility. Amado Vrieswijk won Windsurf Foil, Luca Franchi took Wingfoil and Matteo Iachino claimed Windsurf Fin. The outcome mattered beyond the podium because Garda Trentino has linked the growth of windsurfing over the last twenty years to tourism across the entire basin, and events like Foil Days now serve as both sporting anchor and business engine for the Alto Garda Trentino scene.