SUP Alps Trophy Season Opening Lake Rocks Festival

When it comes to big SUP Events, it is like going to a big party and the attention of media, spectators and athelet is on who will show up. The Lake Rocks Festival is such an event, with an incredible price purse of EUR 12K, strong athletes be fools not to show up to snag up a nice pay check. Last year the weekend in Austria was a full success with hundreds of participants. This year the organizers are on pace to break the 400 mark. Some notable names have already signed up such as Michael Booth and Vaic Garioud and on the ladies side we have Suask Molinero a longtime SUP Athlete.

There to challenge Boothy and Vaic is the Fast-Flying Duchman Donato Freens and who knows maybe Andrei Kraytor who is paddling his first race this year will be good for a podium upset. Even he only joined the SUP World only a few short years ago, he probably is one with the most paddle experience as a former Olympian.

Besides the local heroes and from Germany and Austria, we are still missing names. For example last years winner Cecilia Pampinella is not on the roster yet, we have also not heard if Bruno Hasulyo will be back to defend his title. (Check the results from last year here.) Further more we are wondering if the Spanish armada with Esperanza Barreras, Duna Gordillo and all the boys will show up. We were told that Espe is interested to go to Austria but is still working on getting a board. Rai Taguchi, even being in Europe right now, did not put the race on his schedule. (We interviewed him last week) Instead he committed to the EURO TOUR going to the Sancti Petri SUP Race in Italy that is on the same weekend.

There is still time to sign up and we are sure we will see some more names in the sport making their way to Austria for the big weekend in the beginning of May. It is unfortunate that we have two races on that weekend and it creates a scheduling conflict for some athletes. How ever, top athletes can earn a better pay check in Austria than in Italy.

The Lake Rocks Festival also marks the kick off for the SUP Alps Trophy and Gerd Weisner CEO and Owner of the tour is already excited to welcome all the participants at the Faaker See:

“It was one of the premium SUP race festivals 2023 and it will be even better 2024 in terms of participation and quality of competitors. 3 weeks to go for registrations and we expect a higher participation than last year with 400+ racers at the startline. This is where you can compete against national best and the world elite as well as your friends. The longdistance and tech race results count as well for the ICF worldranking.

We have an entry level Fun Race, a real Longdistance & tech race with price money,  a boardercross style I-SUP Tech Race in the inner city with a nice party as well as  a new  race  “The fastest paddler of the lake” where you have to race beach start 100m out and around a buoy and back to the beach. You can start multiple times.

Besides of all competitions you can test all the latest products from the best manufacturers and have a good time enjoying music, food, drinks and live music.

We have promised and entry´s from:  Michael Booth, Cameron Tripney, Donato Freens, Vaic Garioud,  Blue Ewer, Paolo Marconi, Bodie Van Almen, Andrey Kraytor, Joep Van Bakel , Chris Taucher, Manuel Lauble, Susak Molinero, Reka Slekta, Sabine Fischer and youngsters Skadi Langbein, Joyo Karst,  Zeno Szabo, Benyam Bossack, Maximus Sirjer and others. Actually we have registrations from 16 countries and more to come. Also in the age groups of juniors and masters the starter list is high profile with a huge participation from Hungary, Germany, Italy , Austria, Slovenia, Poland. Just to name a couple masters it is like a world championship Peter Weidert, Gabor Szabo, Holger Hassenpflug, Gerd Weisner, Balazs Dori, Sara Odera, Polona Pusljar…

In the longdistance we all start together and I like it. It´s exciting to have huge participation and comparison between all of us from young to old, amateur to pro. Finally we will have also podiums for the fastest juniors up to 11 and up to 15 as well as masters 50+ /60+. It is worth a holiday trip, especially taking in mind that back to back the next weekend and just around the corner there is the next SUP Alps Trophy event ADRIA SUP CHALLENGE  COPER-CAPODISTRIA / SLOVENIA 18. -19.05.2024 .“

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We at the Stand Up Magazin look forward to follow the race weekend and anticipate a great media coverage, as the race counts as an ICF qualifier towards Sarasota and with Matieu from TotalSUP nothing should go wrong in the commentator booth either.