Freestyle is on the programme for the first five days. The wind forecast looks particularly strong for today's opening day - so make sure you're in the wind this afternoon. Livestream stop by. For freestylers, Fuerte is one of the most challenging, but also one of the most rewarding places. It gets particularly spectacular when a small swell hits the beach of Sotavento, as this provides the perfect jump ramps to get the latest power moves high in the air.
Sarah Quita can win her 15th freestyle world title this week
Sarah-Quita Offringa starts the week aiming to secure her 15th PWA Freestyle World Title and 23rd overall. Her record speaks for itself, but this phenomenal record can also be a heavy burden - everyone is expecting her to win here again. With riders like runner-up Maaike Huvermann, who has already managed to win a heat against Sarah-Quita once in recent years (on Bonaire in 2019), the Queen of Freestyle definitely has strong competition and always plenty of motivation to continue to be at the top of women's freestyle.
From a German perspective, last year's fourth-placed Lisa Kloster, who has already been travelling to Fuerteventura for a few days, will be giving her all to crack the podium this year.
Comeback of 9-time freestyle world champion Gollito Estredo
Yes, the rumours are true: Gollito Estredo will be competing again. Since 2019, he has mainly focussed on wing freestyle, but is now returning to windsurfing. This week will show how good he is with his board and sail in training, but with nine world championship titles in his pocket, the exceptional talent is impossible to write off.
However, with Adrien Bosson, Steven van Broeckhoven, Kiri Thode, Amado Vrieswijk and Yentel Caers, there will be numerous other experienced former world champions in the fleet who will not make it easy for Gollito. Davy Scheffers, the European champion from 2012, will be making another exciting comeback. After a four-year break, he is also back on Fuerte.
Lennart Neubauer in top form, Caers defends his title
Current World Championship runner-up Lennart Neubauer won the last freestyle event on Sylt last year, which was also his first win on the World Tour. Neubauer has been on the radar for some time now, and especially after his intensive training in Pozo over the last few weeks, it looks like he is a solid contender for the world title.
Yentel Caers will be going all out to make a good start to his title defence this year.
The now two-time freestyle world champion from Belgium scored 51.1 points at the Fuerte World Cup in 2023, the highest score in this competition, and will have to be at his best again to prevail against the strong competition.
Another rider not to be overlooked is Italy's Jacopo Testa, who has been at the forefront of freestyle for years and is likely to be particularly motivated to shake up the podium places following his change of sponsor at the start of the year.
Two German women and three men will be competing
With Elena Dominick and Sebastian Gux, two German newcomers will be competing at the World Cup on Fuerte, while the more experienced brothers Nebelung and Lisa Kloster have clear goals in mind this year. Niclas Nebelung in particular came very close to breaking through to the top at last year's event on Fuerte, and will be giving his all again this year to get to where he belongs in the World Cup in terms of his very high freestyle level: well up the rankings.
