Marbella, Spain — Mike Michaelides arrived at the Grand Final of the Gran Premio de España on the back of two consecutive third-place finishes, in a boat his team had only just repaired on-site. In the first turn of the final, the strap on the rear binding snapped. From that point there was no race left to run — only a boat that couldn’t be steered.
The 2026 UIM MotoSurf World Championship made its first-ever stop in Spain on 11–13 September, hosted at El Lago Club, Real de La Quinta, in Marbella. The 18-year-old Cypriot raced in the Elite Men class under race number 22, carrying the colours of Seawolf Watersports / Force8Sports.
Friday: fifth in qualifying
Michaelides posted a qualifying time of 51.800, finishing 5th out of 11 riders — 2.596 seconds off pole-sitter Matyáš Novotný (49.204) and just 1.033 behind 4th-placed Alex Lukscheider. Fifth was good enough to fight from, but not enough to control the opening turn.
Saturday: two 7th-place finishes, a collision, and beach-side repairs
Heat 1 brought a 7th-place finish. Heat 2 brought the incident that shaped the rest of the weekend: the rider behind him struck his boat — caught on video — damaging both the hull and the propulsion pump. Another 7th place followed.
What came next happened on the spot. The team carried out emergency repairs at the venue with one goal: getting the boat back on the water for the next heat. It’s the side of the sport that rarely makes the highlight reel, but it was the difference between the weekend ending there and Michaelides reaching the Grand Final.
Heat 3, later that Saturday, delivered the answer: eight laps, three long laps, a time of 8:03.690, and third place worth 11 points, behind Adam Ficek and Novotný — with Michaelides holding off Daniel Provazník by just two-tenths of a second.
Sunday: a second podium, then the final
Heat 4, on Sunday, confirmed the repair had held. Another 3rd place, in 8:06.450, for another 11 points, behind Novotný and Jan Trávníček. Two straight podium finishes in a boat patched together on the sand the day before.
Heading into the Grand Final, Michaelides was, by the numbers, the third-fastest rider on the water that weekend.
The final: first turn, race over
In the first turn of the Grand Final, the rear binding strap broke. Without a stable back foot, the boat can’t be steered — it’s not a question of speed, but of control. The race ended there, with no way to convert two days of progress into a final result.
What Marbella leaves behind
Two things stand out. The first is the trajectory: from 7th–7th to 3rd–3rd within the same weekend, with a collision and a damaged pump in between. That’s not luck.
The second is the cost of equipment failure. Twice in three days, the result turned on something outside the rider’s control — a collision and a strap. In a sport where the boat travels to each round by transport and gets repaired in a tent by the beach, that’s part of the competition itself.
The 18-year-old continues his first season in the Elite class, having already raced in Turkey, Czechia, and Sweden this year. The championship closes with two rounds in China in November.
Source: Action In Sports Cyprus
