Citroën Windsurf World Cup Sylt
As promised the forecast delivered on Day 7 of the 2025 Citroën Windsurf World Cup Sylt, which saw three more Men’s Foil Slalom eliminations completed in glorious sunshine and the strongest winds of the event so far (10-16 knots), which allowed most of the sailors to change down both front wing size and sail size, while the swell also started to pick up to add another ingredient into the mix, which on the whole produced plenty of exciting racing. However, as has been the case during the opening two days of racing, Johan Søe (PATRIK / PATRIK Sails / PATRIK Foils) and Matteo Iachino (Starboard / Severne Sails) continue to trade bullets, but with his superior discards, it is Søe who looks set to defend his event title.
Men’s
Foil Slalom
Johan Søe started the day with a three point lead over Matteo Iachino (Starboard / Severne Sails), but after missing out on the Winners’ Final of Elimination 5 after dropping his opening gybe in the semifinals, the Dane saw his lead reduced to just 1.7 points with Iachino taking full advantage of the situation as the Italian secured his third bullet of the event.
However, after a temporary blip, it was back to business as usual for Søe as he quickly hit back with consecutive bullets to build, what is surely now an unassailable lead, as after seven eliminations he is currently discarding a second and a ninth place and holds a 5.3 point advantage at the top of the rankings.
This season there has now been 10 eliminations completed and Søe and Iachino have split all of them with Iachino winning 60% of the time and Søe 40% of the time.
After making the perfect start to the day, Iachino couldn’t quite keep the momentum going to really keep the pressure applied to Søe, as he pushed a little bit too hard in the Winners’ Final of Elimination 7 when trying to discard a sixth place, which ultimately resulted in an eighth place and losing vital ground to Søe. However, as discussed yesterday, the event title may be out of reach, but the 36-year-old is currently strongly positioned in the overall rankings with his main world title rival - Pierre Mortefon (FMX Racing / NeilPryde) - currently back in fourth place.
Maciek Rutkowski (JP / NeilPryde) maintained his fine form here as he recorded his third second place of the event in Elimination 5, while he also recorded a fourth and an eighth place, which he currently discards from the last race. Rutkowksi currently holds a three point advantage over Mortefon as he aims for his first Foil Slalom podium since Gran Canaria in 2023.
Mortefon was leading the opening race of the day in the early stages and headed to the fourth and final gybe in second place, but went down after being distracted by the media boat. That was the only blemish on his card today though as he bounced back with a solid second and third place in the next two races, though given the forecast, he’s likely to lose valuable ground in the world title race to Iachino.
Amado Vrieswijk (Future Fly / Point-7 / Z Foils) remains in fifth place with the Bonairean experiencing a somewhat topsy-turvy day. The 29-year-old began by recording his best result of the event thus far - second in Elimination 5 - but then having qualified for four out of the five Winners’ Finals, he crucially missed out on the next two, which all but ends his bid for the podium here. Vrieswijk was able to win both b-finals for maximum damage control.
William Huppert (PATRIK / PATRIK Sails / PATRIK Foils) produced another very solid display of sailing to stay sixth in the overalls. The Frenchman has qualified for all but two Winners’ Finals and is yet to finish worse than tenth in the seven eliminations completed.
Meanwhile, John Soukos (WeOne / Challenger Sails) continues to go from strength-to-strength. On the opening day of racing the young Greek suffered two quarterfinal exits, but after today the 21-year-old has now discarded both of those results. Soukos qualified for his first Winners’ Final yesterday, and after that there’s been a real transformation in his results - qualifying for four finals in a row, which has seen him deservedly climb the leaderboard. After another fine day, Soukos is now ranked seventh.
The top ten is currently completed by Daniele Benedetti (Duotone Windsurfing) - 8th - Jordy Vonk (Duotone Windsurfing) - 9th - and Fabian Wolf (Starboard / Severne Sails), who is just about hanging on to the top ten after suffering two out of three quarterfinal exits today.
Elsewhere, Bruno Martini (I-99 / S2Maui / Z Foils) seemed to enjoy the slightly stronger winds as the Italian qualified for the top eight twice today, while Alexis Mathis (Tabou / GA Sails) earned his best result of the event thus far in Elimination 5 - third, as did Noah Vinther (PATRIK / PATRIK Sails / PATRIK Foils), who finished fifth in Elimination 6.
With only a couple of days of competition to go, it now looks as though our attention will change to Freestyle on Friday and Waves on Saturday with the wind expected to pick up tomorrow. Whether the wind is strong enough in the morning will remain to be seen, but certainly by the afternoon it looks as though the Freestyle world champion could be decided with WindGuru currently predicting 17-29 knot south-southeast winds during the afternoon. The Freestyle fleet will have their skippers’ meeting bright and early at 07:30am (GMT+2) with a first possible start at 08:00am. Meanwhile, the Foil Slalom fleet will be given an announcement at 10am and the Wave fleets at 14:00.
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Current Ranking 2025 Citroën Windsurf World Cup Sylt - Men’s Foil Slalom
*After 7 Eliminations (2 Discards)
1st Johan Søe (DEN | PATRIK / PATRIK Sails / PATRIK Foils)
2nd Matteo Iachino (ITA | Starboard / Severne Sails)
3rd Maciek Rutkowski (POL | JP / NeilPryde)
4th Pierre Mortefon (FRA | FMX Racing / NeilPryde)
5th Amado Vrieswijk (NB | Future Fly / Point-7 / Z Foils)
6th William Huppert (FRA | PATRIK / PATRIK Sails / PATRIK Foils)
7th John Soukos (GRE | WeOne / Challenger Sails)
8th Daniele Benedetti (ITA | Duotone Windsurfing)
9th Jordy Vonk (NED | Duotone Windsurfing)
10th Fabian Wolf (GER | Starboard / Severne Sails)