Foiling Awards: From the Moth to the SailGP - Victoria Schultheis rises to the top

The Foiling Awards are the most important honour of the new foiling generation. At the ceremony in Genoa, Victoria Schultheis was named the most successful foiling sailor of 2025. The German-Maltese sailor's steep rise in professional sailing has only just begun.

Does the name Schultheis sound familiar? There's a good reason for that: Richard Schultheis. The brother of Victoria Schultheis, who is four years younger, has attracted a lot of attention with two fifth places at the Moth World Championships in recent years and his switch from the Maltese to the German Sailing Association.

Victoria Schultheis: World champion after three months in the Motte

Richard Schultheis sailed to outstanding results right from the start in 2025 with his new co-sailor Fabian Rieger. The duo is regarded as 49er top crew of the German Sailing Team on course for LA2028. Richard Schultheis is only 20 years old, but is already one of the outstanding players in Olympic sailing. His sister Victoria is hardly inferior to him.

Having turned 25 on 21 March, the AI and business administration student became world champion last year after just three months in the motte. Before that, she and her sister Antonia Schultheis had also made an Olympic attempt for Malta for the 2024 Games. However, the "Schultheis sisters" lacked 15 kilograms of crew weight. They were too light and missed out on qualifying for Malta by one place. However, Victoria Schultheis has not ruled out a 49erFX comeback in the future.

What she initially failed to achieve in the skiff worked all the better in foiling. She had already been foiling for six years - initially in the Wazp, then intensively in the Switch and since spring 2025 in the Motte - and in July 2025, after just three months, she was in the demanding class raced to the Moth World Championship title in the women's category. She knows: "I was able to build up a really good foundation in the Switch, without which I wouldn't have got this far. Boat handling is so important in the moth."

The award for a foiling expert

2025 was her year. She also won the Switch Global Championship in addition to the World Championship gold and was unbeatable by her competitors at the highest level. It is only logical that the passionate sailor, who moved from Berlin to Malta with her family at the age of ten, has now been named Foiling World Sailor of the Year at the awards.

In the public vote, Victoria Schultheis came out on top against Ten other top female athletes nominated on foiling boats or boards. Among them were such prominent candidates as British Olympic windsurfer Emma Wilson, American Wazp Games winner Pearl Lattanzi and Dutch Formula Kite World Champion Jessie Kampman.

Others have long since discovered Victoria Schultheis' talent: since the beginning of the year, the 1.72 tall athlete, who studies AI and business administration in Frankfurt and often trains on Lake Garda with a base in Malcesine, has been a reserve strategist in the Germany SailGP team. Here a cheerful clip of training together with team colleague and strategist Anna Barth.

Victoria Schultheis has been with the team since the start of the season in Perth and has already completed short training sessions on the F50-Foiler. During the races, she also supported the coaching team led by Lennart Briesenick and Jacopo Plazzi with input.

Inspired by the exchange with the SailGP athletes

Her semester abroad in Sydney was perfectly timed to coincide with the opening of the SailGP season Down Under. Victoria Schultheis is also dedicating part of her studies to sailing and has developed a sailing analysis app with a friend and further support from bright young minds.

"The idea behind Vantag Sailing is that performance data is no longer reserved for professional teams with large analysis departments and data analysts," explains the co-partner of Vantage Sailing is the basic principle, and around 2000 sports sailors from "weekend warriors to high performers" are already benefiting from its analysis options.

Victoria Schultheis is just as interested in these technologies as she is in the developments in her sport on the water. Since last year, she has also seen new prospects for herself, the chance of a professional career as a sailor. "The SailGP is inspiring as a league. The many athletes who are competing at the top level, with whom you can exchange ideas...", says Victoria Schultheis.

Foiling as the best training for a sailing career

Thanks to the slow but increasing participation of female sailors in the World Sailing League, Victoria Schultheis hopes that women will be able to take up more positions at the helm, as flight controllers or wing trimmers in the SailGP in the long term. The Brazilian double Olympic champion Martine Grael is currently the only female helmswoman in the SailGP.

Over the past year, the idea that a professional career in sailing could open up for me has solidified." Victoria Schultheis

Her six years of foiling so far will not be enough. Victoria Schultheis has come to stay. "I decided to go foiling because I want to learn as much as possible and develop as a sailor." This attitude and her talent has now led her to the Foiling Awards stage and to the honour that was awarded to the men's Moth World Champion Enzo Belanger.

The Frenchman had a busy programme to complete on 17 March: First he was introduced in the morning as a crew member of the La Roche-Posay Racing Team for France's America's Cup chasers alongside Quentin Delapierre, Diego Botin, Flo Trittel, Amélie Grassi and other fellow competitors. Enzo Belanger then flew to Genoa to attend the Foiling Awards ceremony in person.

That same evening, they travelled back to Lorient. There, Belanger's first training session with the Cup team was scheduled for the next morning. It was somewhat unfortunate for him that this first training session on AC40s had to be postponed by a day due to strong winds. However, Belanger also met his compatriot Charles Caudrelier in Genoa, who races for the Gitana team and the development of the Ultim giant "Gitana 18" received the Future Impact Award.

Fun instead of pressure: early intensive training in Opti and 29er

Victoria Schultheis will continue with the German SailGP team on 11 and 12 April in Rio de Janeiro and on 9 and 10 May off Bermuda, for which she will be giving her all as reserve strategist on land for the time being and pushing her own learning curve upwards in the process. The competitive gene is always there. She already had it in her childhood and youth, when she trained and raced with her siblings, first in the Opti and then in the 29er.

The Schultheis trio sailed and trained in Maltese conditions four days a week from an early age - because it was fun. "We never had any pressure, but we always battled it out," says Victoria. On course for the Moth World Championships in the summer of 2025, it was Victoria who benefited from her brother's expertise during the preparation on Lake Garda.

But there is also a difference between her brother and her: "We learn differently. He sees something and can implement it immediately. I have to understand something first and then put it into practice. I used to ask him how he does it. He has so much raw talent in him." However, this seems to be no less true for Victoria Schultheis.

Here, world champion Victoria Schultheis presents her moth by Mackay Bieker: