Albeau has tasted his inaugural season triumph, on the beautiful shores of Costa Brava, to halt Bjorn Dunkerbeck from claiming the title, for the first time, in three years.

The French sailor demonstrated his perfectly timed starts time and time again, along with a phenomenal top speed to blow the competition out of the water.

"I'm also really happy to see new blood on the podium, it's really nice and I think I'm going to have a big battle with Julien this year", says Antoine Albeau.

Alberto Menegatti came into the event as the leader of the tour, but a combination of bad luck and a major error - sailing to the wrong mark in the opening elimination - cost him dearly.

Bjorn Dunkerbeck managed to recover from a disastrous first round exit in the opening elimination to fight back to fourth place. Matteo Iachino claimed his first ever podium finish to significantly improve his previous best result - 11th in Sylt last year.

This may prove to be a pivotal moment of the season as younger sailors truly start to believe that they can crack the years of experience, which is so often associated with slalom in order to be successful.

The 2013 PWA Catalunya World Cup Results:

1st Antoine Albeau (RRD/NeilPryde)
2nd Julien Quentel (RRD/NeilPryde)
3rd Matteo Iachino (F2/Challenger Sails / AL360)
4th Bjorn Dunkerbeck (Starboard/Severne/Dunkerbeck Eyewear/Chris Benz)
5th Micah Buzianis (JP/MauiSails)
6th Ben Van Der Steen (Starboard/Loft Sails/Mystic/Different)
7th Arnon Dagan (RRD/NeilPryde)
8th Alberto Menegatti (Starboard/Point-7)
9th Andrea Cucchi (Patrik/Point-7)
10th Cyril Moussilmani (Starboard/Severne)