Its been a while we heard a story of some paddlers taking the wrong turn. In this case our paddler(s) managed to paddle 200m in the wrong direction and still end up on podium.
Thank you Gerd Weisener for this Insider Story:
SUPRACE LOVERS – INSIGHTS OF THE LONGDISTANCE PRO – 2. TOURSTOP SUP ALPS TROPHY – LEGEND OF OX
The first SUP Alps Trophy tour stop, THE LAKE ROCKS at the beautiful location in Kärnten, Faaker See, has been a great success and many new faces from Slovenia, Hungary as well as some friends from Italy competed against the Austrian and German SUP racers.
The 2nd tour stop was hosted at lake Wolfgang in the beautiful town St. Gilgen and is as well a real SUP FESTIVAL – LEGEND OF OX – an iconic event. Besides many elite paddlers from Austria, Germany, Hungary, Slovenia we have been happy to see a huge participation from Czech Republic and Poland including some of their top youngsters and legends as well as international elite paddlers like Andrey Kraytor starting for Bulgaria, paddling against Ole Schwarz and Normen Weber.
Allow me tell you some insights of what happen from my perspective in the men’s pro longdistance race:
The SUP Alps Trophy Top Ten 2022 will be a hard catch. The number of participants and quality of paddlers is getting better and better each year. This race series will be the breeding ground for future top athletes in our territory as well as the largest gathering of SUP racing enthusiasts.
At the start line we saw former Olympians in canoe sports, hungry youngsters, national champions and proven masters that have won medals in the last ICF World Championships.
The race course has been like a large tech race with many buoys. Each round was around 3,4 km in a total of 3 rounds. Start line to the first buoy has been 550m and as expected the top paddlers as Ole Schwarz, Normen Weber and Andrej Kraytor have been at the forefront with a new face that did impress quite a lot, Manuel Lauble.
Austrian champ Christian Taucher followed with Bransislav Sramek and Hermann Husslein not far behind. In the next pack there have been many paddlers including me and it has been a big mix of new and old faces. After the 4th buoy, rock´n roll started and the 2 leading paddlers Andrey and Ole took the wrong direction forgetting about one buoy and had to take 200m extra not to get disqualified. Normen Weber and Manuel Lauble did not make that mistake.
In the field behind it has been a new and occasionally happy circumstance to find a lucky draft from Ole and Andrey to split with their usual competitors.
My favorite new paddler in this longdistance was Manuel Lauble. He was improving most this year as did my friend and dark horse Hermann Husslein who had a fall in front of me at the first buoy and did paddle hard to finish with a strong 6th place. The podium has been earned by a clever Normen Weber, a heavily improved Manuel and a superfast Ole in 3rd.
Funny story behind Oles’ wrong turn: At night we have had dinner with Ole, Normen, Hermann and Olaf Schwarz (father) and I asked: “Ole, why didn´t you hear your father scream when you turned the wrong direction?“ Simple answer, he was paddling with earbuds, paddling with the beat. No complain it works, he is fast but 3rd.
Cheers
Gerd
P.S Excited to hear your impressions about your race – doesn´t matter fighting for top ten or top 30… and what happened in the elite women’s field ?
SUP Alps Trophy LEGEND OF OX Longdistance
SUP Alps Trophy Ranking 2022 after the 2nd Tourstop
Next Tourstop SUPALOT 18.-19.06.2022