ISA Worlds Puerto Rico Top Athletes

It is just a few days to the next world championship, this time we are looking forward to see who is competing under the ISA patronage in Puerto Rico. We were curios for a long time to see who would make the trip and who would be able to get boards to this, for the SUP Sport, rather remote location.

The ISA has (finally) updated their website and published the athletes. We went through the list and picked out favorite contenders for the upcoming week.

Here are the competing countries:

  • American Samoa
  • Argentina
  • Australia
  • Brazil
  • Canada
  • Chile
  • Chinese Taipei
  • Colombia
  • Costa Rica
  • Denmark
  • Egypt
  • El Salvador
  • France
  • Great Britain
  • Hungary
  • Italy
  • Mexico
  • New Zealand
  • Panama
  • Peru
  • Puerto Rico
  • Saudi Arabia
  • Spain
  • Switzerland
  • US Virgin Islands
  • USA

26 Nations are coming together of which 11 are from the American continent, 7 European countries and the rest is from all over, there are even 3 people from Saudi Arabia. Afterall, this is a much better turn out than expected. Now lets have a look at some of the familiar names and try to predict some outcomes.

Best known Athletes

Argentnia: Juliette DuHaime, debut this year at the APP Tour.

Australia: Michael Booth (LD power house) Ty Judson, Kai Bates (Surfer) (Where is Shakira Westdorp?)

Brazil: Aline Adisaka recent APP tour appearances and QS Surfer in the past.

Canada: Lina Augaitis coming out of retirement, former super power house, PPG winner.

Costa Rica: Jennifer Kalmbach, big time SUP Pioneer and M2O channel crosser.

Colombia: Izzi Gomez, Giorgio Gomez – Izzi: Red Bull athlete and big waves surfer, Giorgio aspiring QS surfer, both long time participants in the SUP Sport.

Denmark: Caroline KĂĽntzel, will she continue her epic year? Christian Andersen ready to take on his peers.

France: Noic Garioud, Titouan Puyo, Amandine Chazot, Benoit Carpentier (longtime surfer) Strong team for the french and for sure we will see some metals.

Hungary: Daniel Hasulyo, long time paddler and well known athlete with many podiums.

Italy: Claudio Nika, Leo Nika. The Nika brothers are well known in SUP Surf and raceing. Cecillia Pampinella (Junior power house made her self a name this year.)

Japan: Shuri (Shrimpy) Araki rising star from the land of the rising sun.

Mexico: Javier “Bitcho” Jimenz early paddler from the PPG days and a very strong one too.

Peru: Itzel Delgado is not on the list?? Must be a mistake unless he also goes by Vincente Delgado?

Spain: Iballa Moreno, Lucas Simoncelli, Manuel Hoyuela Rojas, Rafael Sirvent Salazar, Aaron Sanchez, Duna Gordillo, Esperanza Barreras. A very strong team with Juniors and seasoned paddlers, they will be battling with the french for the most metals.

USA: Connor Baxter, April Zilg, Bernd Roedinger, Bodie Von Allmen, Candice Appleby, Zane Schweitzer, Soryn Preston, Stepanie Shiedeler. A very strong team of new and seasoned paddlers, most of them will not need introduction.

There are quite a few names missing and if we over looked somebody on the roster (had weed through all the teams) we are sorry. The last thing we expected was too see names of some old friends from back in the day and we are looking forward to see them paddling.

We have not seen Lina Augaitis going against Candice Appleby in many many years. Now we are throwing the french Amandine Chazot and Spains Esperanza Barreras in the mix and we have an exciting race to look forward to.

Making some predictions might not be very hard, as Spain and France have by far the strongest teams with the most paddlers. We are looking forward to see Titou and Michael Booth on the long distance course for sure. Connor will be focusing on Sprints and Tech. Race mostly.

Despite the smaller turn out than most other world championships we should have some exciting SUP racing ahead. Who knows maybe we are even in for a big surprise and have some new/old paddlers taking the world by storm.