The world was anticipating a SUP showdown between Michael Booth and Danny Ching at the legendary Graveyard SUP Longdistance Race at the Carolina Cup. Instead it was Michael Booth who domiated the race pretty much from the start. The big surprise of the day was the performance of the Brazilian paddler Eri Tenorio. He took second place but still running 2 minutes 27 seconds behind Boothy. Never the less it appears we have to keep a closer eye on Eri as he was also clearly much faster than Spain’s Aaron Sanchez who finished more than 5 minutes behind the first place.
Seeing Danny Ching in 4th place this far behind Boothy certainly comes a bit as a surprise. In fact all of the top 5 paddlers all came across the finish line not within seconds but minutes. Also noteworthy is the performance of Bodie von Almen the youngster from Oregon is quite a bit younger than his competitors finishing with a strong 5th place behind some big names in the sport.
Results Graveyard men
| Place | Name | Time | |
| 1 | Michael Booth | 2:01:13.8 | |
| 2 ➤ 4 | Eri Tenorio penalty | 2:03:39.6 02:09:35.3 | |
| 3 ➤ 5 | Aaron Sanchez Quetglas penalty | 2:06:49.9 2:10:00.8 | |
| 2 | Danny Ching | 2:07:59.3 | |
| 3 | Bodie Von Allmen | 2:09:25.8 | |
| 6 | Steven Bernstein | 2:13:21.2 | |
| 7 | Steve Miller | 2:15:31.1 | |
| 8 | Campbell Carter | 2:15:45.5 | |
| 9 | Tim Warner | 2:16:15.6 | |
| 10 | Jake Portwood | 2:16:20.0 | |
| 13 | John Batson | 2:19:53.2 | |
| 15 | Tommy Buday | 2:24:54.0 | |
| 17 | Marc Simoncelli Canudas | 2:28:03.8 | |
| 19 | Travis Kindt | 2:29:35.6 | |
| 21 | Pete Gauvin | 2:33:00.8 | |
| 23 | Matt Jones | 2:35:39.4 | |
| 25 | Tilghman Meiser | 2:37:22.5 | |
| 26 | James Welch | 2:38:09.5 | |
| 27 | Cameron Carney | 2:39:25.8 | |
| 28 | Collin Poskaitis | 2:40:57.6 | |
| 30 | Alex Sandler | 2:41:41.5 | |
| 31 | James Nickerson | 2:43:01.5 | |
| 35 | Terry Smith | 2:52:09.6 | |
| 36 | Anthony Galang | 2:53:45.1 | |
| 37 | Mike Hill | 2:55:55.3 |
The ladies results came also with a surprise. The on the international stage unknown Kimberly Barnes won 13 miles race over SUP all star Candice Appleby. The ladies race however was much closer than the mens. Kimberly had Candice beat by only 10 seconds and another 50 seconds behind that we already had Duna Gordillo making the 3rd place. As all three top paddlers came in with in a minute from each other, behind Duna was a big gap of more than 6 minutes.
Another female athlete we kept an eye on was Sey Chelle. This was her first race since she announced a “semi” retirement after her pregnancy. Now she was back but with almost 15 minutes behind the leader we are sure this was not the time the former world champion was looking for. We maybe curios if this was the only international race we have seen Sey Chelle competing in or will she go and compete again like her old days?
| 1 | Kimberly Barnes | 2:18:55.3 |
| 2 | Candice Appleby | 2:19:04.6 |
| 3 | Duna Gordillo | 2:19:55.3 |
| 4 | Laura Quetglas | 2:26:40.3 |
| 5 | Stephanie Shideler | 2:29:35.0 |
| 6 | Sey chelle | 2:32:10.1 |
| 7 | Victoria Burgess | 2:35:21.0 |
| 8 | Emilie Fournel | 2:37:00.0 |
| 9 | Regan Littell | 2:41:29.2 |
| 10 | Alex Ostrowski | 2:43:04.7 |
| 11 | Madeline Leblanc | 2:44:43.3 |
| 12 | Soryn Preston | 2:49:44.4 |
| 13 | Sylvie Bordeleau | 3:03:06.9 |
| 14 | Caroline Cook | 3:04:08.7 |
| 15 | Edith Turcotte | 3:04:10.8 |
| 16 | Danielle Holdsworth | 3:10:20.0 |
| 17 | Kristin Thomas | 3:12:56.4 |
| 18 | Kattie Carpenter | 3:16:26.5 |
| 19 | Wendy Tillett | 3:23:32.1 |
| 20 | Kathy Mcrae | 3:28:27.8 |
| 21 | Kate Lewis | 3:44:57.3 |
| 22 | Kirsty MacMillan | 3:52:37.0 |
| 23 | Cloutier Andrea Guay | 4:02:18.1 |
Over all it is disappointing to see how the date over lap with the SUP World Festival has diminished the participation in the elite field of paddlers. The Carolina Cup was traditionally the big season opener for the SUP Sport. How ever the weekend is not over and we are looking forward to the Tech. Races on Sunday. We will be seeing April Zilg in her first SUP Race of the year. (Looking for more pictures of the race? So are we.)