Leucate wingfoil opener turns into a survival test, new names rise
Tom Acherer’s 26.63-point final won Leucate, but the bigger story was a shortened bracket that rewarded survival over style.
Tom Acherer won Leucate by doing the one thing the weather demanded most: staying alive in a format that had been squeezed until every heat became a test of judgment as much as skill. His 26.63-point final was the highest score of the event, and it came in a competition that had already been stripped down by tricky winds, missing stars and a bracket built around the few clean windows the forecast allowed.
The 2026 GWA Wingfoil World Tour opened its Surf-Freestyle season at the 29th Mondial du Vent in Leucate, France, from 21 to 26 April, with 24 men and 20 women from 12 nationalities on the original start list. The story was never just about who was entered, though. Women’s 2025 world champion Marie Schlittenbauer sat out through injury, while Mar de Arce, Aleksander Acherer and Ancor Sosa also missed the opener, leaving the field thinner than the headline would suggest. Leucate, long known for the fierce Tramontana winds that usually power the action, offered less certainty than drama.
That uncertainty forced the key competitive decision before the first serious heats even ran. Organizers cut the seeding rounds and sent the men straight into round 4 and the women into round 3, a survival-style format meant to preserve a meaningful result in a small wind window. The event did not really come alive until the third day, when freestyle finally got enough air to run in earnest, and the final morning was squeezed into very light, tricky conditions in the earliest available wind window.
Once the heats started moving, the bracket began to shake out in favor of riders who adapted quickly and punished hesitation. Malo Guenole went out in round 5. Axel Gerard and Bastien Escofet fell earlier than expected. Defending champion Benjamin Castenskiold could not survive the cut either, and Chris MacDonald struggled to land his attempts. Charlie Loch’s comeback from injury stopped short of the final four, another reminder that Leucate was asking for clean execution under pressure, not reputation.
In the end, Acherer finished ahead of Rocco Makana and Luca Vuillermet, with Makana taking second for his first GWA podium and Vuillermet third for his first as well. Nia Suardiaz won the women’s title in the same compressed, weather-tested opener. The result tells a clear story about who handled the survival conditions best, but it does not settle the 2026 pecking order. With the tour set for 10 events on four continents and surf-freestyle on eight stops, Leucate was an early read, not a final verdict.
Know something we missed? Have a correction or additional information?
Submit a Tip
