Nico Parlier finishes off with a perfect score in Hyeres champagne sailing conditions

[Bletti]

Nico has been foiling for far longer than most of the other riders. Most only made the switch from formula in the past 3-4 years, whereas he was one of the early adopters in 2011 so he's very natural on the foil.

[FrederikS]

Also he could ride the ML foil and R1V2 where the primary competition was on year old kites or foils or both. On top of that he is a fast guy! 44 knots at around 140 degrees to the wind is just crazy.

[Mossy 757]

the primary competition was on year old kites or foils or both.

The only other kites on the line besides R1V2 were the Sonic2 and Diablo2, both of which were released more recently than the R1V2. I think someone rode a Sonic v1 during a couple of races, that's obviously a much older kite. Banga and Levitaz are both contemporary foils to the ML, if not a little bit newer honestly.

I'd be really careful to attribute Nico's wins to his gear, in fact, I'd go so far as to say that's not the answer. There are a ton of guys on ML and Ozone gear right now, and Nico still beats them. Watch this clip of him sailing around former world champ Johnny Heineken on the same exact foil and same exact kite. That's not good equipment, that's skill! Nico is on the orange R1, Olly Bridge on the black Elf, Johnny on the red R1.

https://youtu.be/0RG-YrNkN3A?t=10m13s

[FrederikS]

the primary competition

Maybe read the last sentence. The ML foil is still not available anywhere so that is an advantage. But nice to see four different foils in top 10!

[lezo]

Nico has a special talent for foiling.

Maybe I have already told the story: It was a couple of years ago, I was blessed so I did not participate in the French Championship final event in Wimereux as a rider but helped in the security boat the non-kiter security staff, knowing how to handle kites in rescue situations. I was in the boat with Yann Sunn, local windsurfing hero, who won several French Championship podiums in waveriding. Being a really cool guy, he was also helping out at this major local event. Foils just started to beat raceboards in competitions but in Wimereux there wasn't anybody foiling yet, so this was the first time he saw anyone foiling in real. We watched the mixed (foil/raceboard) fleet passing by our boat at full speed with the best French riders among them when Yann pointed to a very young foil rider in the middle of the fleet by asking: this guy is different, he is riding his gear much more naturally than anyone else, what's his name? You guessed, he was Nico.

[Toby]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grrK7E9S5Mw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grrK7E9S5Mw