Late flip in Tarifa crowns new wingfoil surf-freestyle contender

Marie Schlittenbauer turned a close women’s final at Valdevaqueros into a Tarifa crown with a late surge, and Benjamin Castenskiold left Spain with another statement win in the men’s draw. With steady Poniente wind carrying the 2026 GWA Wingfoil World Cup Tarifa from June 24-27, the four days of racing rewarded riders who could keep landing high-value tricks as the heats got tighter and the pressure rose.

Tarifa drew 28 men and 19 women into a field that had little room for error from the opening round. The beach has a reputation for forcing riders into a fight, and the wind delivered again, giving the contest a reliable platform instead of the kind of stop-start chaos that can flatten a freestyle event. That made the difference in the final rounds, where the best riders kept stacking scores when the margins narrowed.

The women’s draw was defined by a younger group pushing into the top tier. Sofia Ginzinger, just 13, put together a 17.83 in the quarterfinals. Nia Suardiaz fed off a loud home crowd in Spain. Schlittenbauer, 16, returned after missing Leucate through injury and posted 26.87 points as she worked back into title form. Milla Danguy then made her way into her first final with one of the cleanest heats of the day, and she was ahead at the midpoint before the result flipped late. Schlittenbauer found the last decisive moves, and that late swing gave her the women’s title.

The result mattered because Tarifa sits at the center of a seven-event Surf-Freestyle season inside a 10-stop tour spread across four continents. It was the second stop of the 2026 campaign, so every title defense and every run toward the podium carried extra weight. Castenskiold and Schlittenbauer arrived with that pressure on them after both had won their first Surf-Freestyle world titles in 2025, and Tarifa again showed why the event keeps producing shifts in the pecking order.

Castenskiold came in after finishing ninth at the opening stop in Leucate in unusually light winds, and Tarifa gave him the reset he needed. The Danish rider had already announced himself here in 2025, when he won his first World Cup at only 13 years old in just his second senior stop. Tarifa had also produced a shock on the women’s side last year, when Mar de Arce beat reigning world champion Nia Suardiaz on home water. Another late reversal in 2026 only reinforced the same point: in Tarifa, no lead feels safe for long.