The 2023 SUP Race season is still young, but with the 2nd EURO TOUR race in the books one thing became clear: Esperanza Barreras is paddling in her own league. We have seen her in Ceuta pretty much untouched and this weekend in Sevilla she once again left her competitors far behind. In both races it was Duna Gordillo behind her but she was not able to match Espes power and endurance. The field behind Esperanza is staked with you hungry SUP athletes and the podium was often a tight outcome behind Espe. Nevertheless Esperanza Barreras was on top of the podium by quite a margin.
Who could be the person to beat Espe this year? We might have to travel to the Carolina Cup , as Espe and Duna are both making the journey across the Atlantic to meet their American counterparts to find out.
The Carolina Cup is attracting the entire US elite and from what we saw, April Zilg, Candice Appleby and Seychelle will be there. We have not seen or heard anything from Fiona Wylde, if she is making her SUP Race debut this year at Wrightsville Beach in 2 weeks. Assuming she will be there, these ladies are Esperanzas biggest competitors.
This is why we are looking forward to the last big SUP event in the US. All American ladies are very successful paddlers and highly competitive. It will be a rare sight seeing them all competing against each other. This is why on the women side we will have all eyes on the Carolina Cup at the end of the month.
Sadly the Carolina Cup is at the same weekend as the SUP World Festival in Alicante that includes an APP rating. It is unfortunate, that the SUP World Elite will be split in to two events that weekend as the European event will be missing the strong ladies from the US plus at least Espearnza and Duna. On the other hand it would have been cool to see more Europeans traveling to the US.
If Esperanza manages to be as dominant in North Carolina as she was the last two races at the EURO TOUR there wont be much in her way to be the worlds number one female athlete untouched for 2023.