On Sunday 13 July, Enzo Balanger, aged 24, became the first French foiling Moth world champion, winning gold in Malcesine (Lake Garda) ahead of Australia’s Tom Slingsby and New Zealand’s Jacob Pye (see the final rankings). Tip & Shaft takes a look back at this achievement and the young sailor’s career.
Enzo Balanger is the first Frenchman to be crowned world champion in a foiling Moth discipline hitherto dominated by the Anglo-Saxons. It’s a remarkable achievement, as he leaves behind him some of the top names in the America‘s Cup and Olympic sailing. The Australian Tom Slingsby – 2012 Olympic Laser champion, winner of the America’s Cup in 2013 and three-time winner of the SailGP circuit -, the British Paul Goodison – three-time Moth world champion – and Dylan Fletcher – Olympic 49er champion in Tokyo and skipper of the British SailGP team -, the 2024 Sailor of the Year, the Spaniard Diego Botin – winner of last year’s Games in the 49er and of the SailGP circuit: all had to lose out to the native of Les Abymes, Guadeloupe.
“It’s a big achievement!” says a delighted Bruno Dubois, co-director with Stephan Kandler of K-Challenge and Orient Express Racing Team, who last year recruited the new world champion as skipper of the French team for the Youth America‘s Cup in Barcelona, before integrating him this year into the new Akademy K-Challenge. “Since Sunday, I’ve been receiving messages from some of the greatest sailors in the Cup and in SailGP, including Grant Dalton, Tom Slingsby, Russell Coutts and James Spithill, all telling me that he sailed like one of the greatest! He did real match racing with Tom (Slingsby, winner in 2019) for several days. He’s got guts and doesn’t give up, and then he’s a real tightrope walker on this boat.”
Although exceptional, this result does not necessarily come as a surprise, as Bruno Dubois points out: “Enzo was not an outsider, since after his sixth place in the world championship last year and his victories at Foiling Week in 2023 and 2024, he won his first training regatta on Lake Garda at the start of the year, and Foiling Week again at the end of June. All the SailGP greats I know told me he was the man to beat!”
“I didn’t have a break”
And what does the sailor himself think? “Deep down, even though I was hoping for a podium finish because the more training sessions and regattas went on, the more I saw that I was in the running, I didn’t think I’d win the title this year,” he replies. “I’d trained 95% in southerly winds and we did 50% of our races in very strong northerly winds, with quite a few waves. However, I managed to get into the championship very quickly, to win races and to be consistent [5 out of 10 leg wins, editor’s note]. It was really dense, especially in the final, where there could be twenty boats in ten seconds, so I didn’t have a break. But I tried to sail my style and stay confident. I had a great time racing against these big names.” His victory was also hailed by Paul Goodison, three-time world champion (from 2016 to 2018), who “took off his golden butterfly sail (the Moth logo is golden for former winners) so that it could be stuck on mine, which was very moving”.
In any case, this title is a crowning achievement for the man who started sailing in Guadeloupe at the age of 6 in Optimist (European champion in 2014) and continued at the La Rochelle Espoir centre in 420, where he teamed up with Gaultier Tallieu, with whom he was runner-up in the French Espoir championship in 2016 and took fourth place in the Open world championship in 2018. The logical next step would have been to continue in the 470, but he abandoned the Olympic dinghy after a year after discovering the Moth. “I quickly became addicted to the foil, so I switched to the flying Nacra 17 for two years, before going on to compete in the Moth,” explains the man who has been a fan of the America’s Cup since he was a child. “I saw that all the sailors doing the Cup were sailing Moths, and I just wanted to be like them!”
“Hard-working, rigorous
and very determined”
Mission accomplished, which comes as no surprise to Gaultier Tallieu, his team-mate from the 420 years as well as the Youth America’s Cup: “Enzo is an extremely talented helmsman, he’s hard-working, rigorous and very determined. When he sets himself a goal, he does everything he can to achieve it and I think that all the work he put in beforehand on Lake Garda has paid off.” Matisse Pacaud, three-time 470 youth world champion, who has been sailing with Enzo Balanger since their first confrontations in Optimist in 2014 and was also part of last year’s Youth America’s Cup adventure, adds: “He leaves no detail unturned, and as he is super curious, he has developed his Moth enormously from a technical point of view. Everything that could be perfected, he has done.”
Aymeric Arthaud, the young Guadeloupean’s coach, also highlights this attention to detail and meticulous preparation. “We worked on the water so that he could get his bearings on the different angles for the laylines, the wind, the water temperature, but also a lot on the technical side, the choice of equipment, the angles of the foils or how finely they were sanded. We were still making modifications to the boat right up until the day before the championship.”
The latter, who had already coached Enzo Balanger at the 2023 World Championship in Weymouth [no ranking, due to the lack of a sufficient number of races run, editor’s note], now says he is “impressed by his maturity and his mental attitude“, which were particularly evident on Lake Garda: “He had a lot of technical problems, and despite that, he always managed to stay focused. I think the Youth Americas Cup has helped him in that aspect.” The world champion agrees: “This experience taught me to manage the pressure better, to stay calmer and clearer in difficult moments.”
What next? “I’m going to continue training in the Moth so that I can defend my title next year in Perth,” he replies. “And if the French challenge starts up again for the next Cup, I’d like to be part of it, just as I’d like to return to the SailGP circuit [he helmed the F50 on a training session this season in Dubai], but nothing’s been decided yet!” His world title will certainly be an asset in helping the decisions.
Photo : Martina Orsini
