When the last-minute call came for Leon Schiel to compete at the first stop of the 2024 GWA Wingfoil World Tour in Cape Verde, he wasn’t nervous at all. The famous Ponta Preta break can be intimidating and daunting to those who can’t tame it, but for the 14-year-old, it feels like home.
The only thing he actually had to worry about was getting himself and his gear there. Originally, Leon was only on the waiting list, and did not expect to compete in Cape Verde at all. But he had made a strong impression with his performance in last year’s event, enough so that when a few competitors withdrew at the eleventh hour, he was the one to get the call from the World Tour Manager.
However, Leon and his dad Chris were in Switzerland at the time, far from the bustle and bustle of the competition. The pair rushed back home to England the next morning to grab Leon’s gear before immediately flying to Cape Verde. Thankfully, the event didn’t directly start on the first day of the competition window, which gave him at least 24 hours to get acclimated.
Thankfully, Leon knows the country and the spot like the back of his hand and could approach this situation serenely.
“I’ve been going out to Cape Verde since I was a baby really,” he said. “My dad was a windsurfer, and now he’s transferred to wing foiling. He bought a flat out there and we’ve been coming on holiday since I was a child. I learned to surf in Cape Verde, and I basically grew up there. It’s like my second home.”
Chris, who calls himself “Leon’s professional caddy”, is nearly always by his son’s side during such events. He helps him calm down, get his gear sorted, and figure out the best way to take on the waves.
In the end, Leon didn’t feel too much pressure or have any specific expectations. He wasn’t even supposed to be there in the first place, so he simply decided to take it all in and enjoy the competition surrounded by his friends and family. Even though he was eliminated in the second round by the reigning World Champion Wesley Brito, he was overall thrilled with his performance.
“I had the best waves of my life out there,” he said. “The waves were completely perfect; it was insane conditions. And it was awesome because I know Wesley, we’re good friends. I knew that there was no pressure on me because I was up against some pretty big guys. So, I just relaxed, tried to do my best, and got as deep and critical as I could on the wave. It was great.”
Before getting into wing foiling, Leon first learned to surf and quickly became comfortable in the water and able to read the wave. Under his father’s guidance, he then started to windsurf, including windsurf foiling at the age of 10. Finally, at 11, he discovered wing foiling, and has been hooked ever since. When he’s not in school, he can almost always be found in the water.
In 2022 and at only 12 years old, he won a spot at the F-ONE Next Generation wing foil camp through a social media contest, thanks to his video entry of him sending it in Mauritius. After a successful camp, he officially became part of F-ONE’s team and has been making the most of it ever since, continuously improving and pushing his limits.
In 2023, Leon became the U14 World Champion in Surf-Slalom and Vice-World Champion in Surf-Freestyle. On top of his successes in these disciplines, he has found himself more and more attracted to the waves. And the bigger they get, the more he thrives.
“I love the adrenaline of the big waves,” he said. “The feeling you get when you’re just zooming down the face and setting up for a bottom turn, when you see the lip forming up, and you just look up and hit the lip… It’s awesome!”
Curious, driven, and eager to improve, Leon doesn’t intend on stopping there and has big goals for the future. For this season, he hopes to continue competing on the GWA Tour and rank in the top 10. He also would like to improve his freestyle tricks, and dreams of landing a double backflip off a wave.
Of course, he also has set his sights on chasing more giants. He’s already tackled some pretty significant spots in the past besides Ponta Preta, like Alibaba, also in Cape Verde or Garywilliam Point in Ireland. But he is obviously hungry for more.
“We’re kind of looking at Nazaré a little bit,” he said. “My friend Tom Knox is a big wave surfer. He’s ridden there a few times, and we were talking about potentially tow foiling there. It would be really, really cool to get some proper big stuff. I also would like to surf big waves in wing foil, because so far, my biggest waves have been tow foiling.”
Undoubtedly, 14-year-old Leon Schiel is making waves of his own, continuing to carve his own path, and proving that age is no barrier to chasing adrenaline-fueled dreams.
Leon’s quiver
STRIKE or SWING
ROCKET WING 4’4
Carbon Mast 85cm
Big waves : ESCAPE 430/530
Small waves : SK8 550/650
