The EURO TOUR opener in Punta Ala in Italy have quite a few surprises in store for us. Not knowing in advance who would be there it was hard to make some predictions. With the results in front of us we may admit that would we have lost the one or other bet guessing the podium.
Women Longdistance
Marie Carmen arrived in Europe. (SWR 21. / 2023) The last time we seen the Puerto Rican lady paddling was at the PanAm games and the ISA in France where she won podiums in all disciplines. This was the moment it became clear she has big potential, just nobody knew if she would travel out side her region. Now we know she has arrived in Europe and won her debut race with a clear margin of over three minutes.
Melanie Lafenetre (SWR 39. / 2023) started her season in a strong position. Her last race and podium was the ICF 2023. We hope to see many battles for gold between her and Mariecarmen
Juliette DuHaime (SWR 9. / 2023) is well into her 2024 SUP Race season. She won the HanoHano and the ProSayulita Longdistance Race. Now she is up against the European competition (plus Mariecarmen) and given she was 11 seconds behind Melanie, she is looking strong.
Cecilia Pampinella (SWR 4. / 2023) is well into her 2024 season and paddled nothing but podiums this year. In fact out of 5 races she got 4 tims gold. Seeing her 10 minutes back is a big surprise and as we know Cecilia she can’t be happy with that result.
Where are the Spaniards, where is Esperanza Barreras? This is a question we been asking ourselves for the last weeks. Not a single person from the “Spanish Tormenta” made it to the EURO TOUR. We have not seen Esperanza racing this year at all. We are really starting to wonder what is going on and hope there is no reason to be concerned.
| Place | Time | Name | Country | Type |
| 1 | 1:32:20 | Mariecarmen Rivera | PR | Elite W |
| 2 | 1:35:23 | Melanie Lafenetre | FRA | Elite W |
| 3 | 1:35:34 | Juliette Duhaime | ARG | Elite W |
| 4 | 1:36:12 | Anais Guyomarch | FRA | Elite W |
| 5 | 1:42:21 | Cecilia Pampinella | ITA | Elite Junior |
| 6 | 1:44:12 | Susak Molinero | ITA | Elite W |
| 7 | 2:08:13 | Miriana Mangialasche | ITA | U16 |
| 8 | 2:16:36 | Julia Risso | FRA | U14 |
| 9 | 2:17:21 | GĂ©raldine Lachkar | FRA | Elite Master |
| DNF | DNF | Valerie Le Dins | FRA | Amateur |
Men Longdistance
Shrimpy Shuri Araki (SWR 8. / 2023) opened up his 2024 SUP season with a bang. He did not just win he destroyed his competitors with over 10 minutes lead time. We have not seen him racing since the ISA and the ICF Worlds last year and we all knew this kids is capable of big things. If he spends the summer in Europe we might see a whole new way of dominance.
Donato Freens was last years SWR number one and already paddled 3 longdistance races this year. Donato knows the podium very well and we have not seen him head to head with shrimpy since the ISA and ICF. We are Shrimpys dominance might have shaken up the young dutch man a bit.
Ethan Bry (SWR 49. / 2023) is a bit of a dark horse who was not that busy of a paddler in 2023. His last result was a 2nd place at the EURO SUP last year. Therefore it is hard to make predictions surrounding Ethans SUP plans for 2024 but given that he traveled the distance to the EURO TOUR we might assume he stick around for a few more races.
Rai Taguchi (SWR 4. / 2023) declared a big SUP Summer 2024 with Podiums and Gold medals. He started well at the SUP Spring race but he missed the podium at his first EURO TOUR race ever by 38 seconds.
| Place | Time | Name | Country | Type |
| 1 | 1:11:20 | Shuri Araki | JAP | Elite M |
| 2 | 1:20:32 | Donato Freens | NED | Elite M |
| 3 | 1:20:54 | Ethan Bry | FRA | Elite M |
| 4 | 1:21:32 | Rai Taguchi | JAP | Elite M |
| 5 | 1:21:44 | Paolo Marconi | ITA | Elite M |
| 6 | 1:24:54 | Ricardo Rossi | ITA | Elite M |
| 7 | 1:25:44 | Eri Tenorio | BRA | Elite M |
| 8 | 1:27:35 | Oliver Houghton | NZL | Elite M |
| 9 | 1:28:12 | Leo Nica | ITA | Elite M |
| 10 | 1:28:43 | Tommaso Pampinella | ITA | Elite M |
| 11 | 1:30:12 | Fabrizio Rondinara | ART | Elite Junior |
| 12 | 1:30:42 | Santino Basaldella | ARG | Elite M |
| 13 | 1:31:12 | Enrico Mandoloni | ITA | Elite M |
| 14 | 1:32:24 | Giulio Lazzarini | ITA | U14 |
| 15 | 1:33:02 | Filippo Alberti | ITA | Elite M |
| 16 | 1:47:13 | Tomas Lelovits | SLO | Elite Master |
| 17 | 1:49:24 | Roberto Mandoloni | ITA | Elite Kahuna |
| 18 | 1:51:21 | Narciso Madeddu | ITA | Elite Master |
| 19 | 1:53:23 | Luka KoĹľar | SLO | Elite M |
| 20 | 1:55:02 | Giulio Brucciani | ITA | Elite Junior |
| 21 | 2:16:21 | Alistair Hughes | UK | Elite Master |
| 22 | 2:18:34 | Oliver Papa | ITA | Amateur |
| 23 | 2:20:13 | Ricardo Papa | ITA | U14 |
| 24 | 2:20:45 | Thomas Andrew Daddi | USA | Elite Master |
| 25 | 2:27:13 | Massimiliano D’Apolito | ITA | Elite Master |
| 26 | 2:29:24 | Giorgio Baldantoni | ITA | Elite Kahuna |