The competitive SUP Sport is hyper focused on what is going on in Europe. All major SUP Tours and events are happening on the “old continent” and we tempt to forget what is going on in the US. That was not always the case. After all, SUP Started in Hawaii and most major events were held in the US until the tide started to turn around about 8 years ago. The only event, still remaining from this time , on the US mainland is the Carolina Cup, it was once the THE event to go to and marked the opening of the new SUP season. Sadly this is no longer the case. We don’t have a clear SUP Season opening anymore, unless you like to count in the GlaGla race in the middle of winter. The Carolina Cup lacks the international participation for it to be a race of significance like it once was.
SUP USA makes a difference
It is thanks to SUP pioneer Kristin Thomas from California who is holding it all together for the SUP Community in the US. The US is such a large country and the sport is spread out into different regions that marks the diversity of the country as well as the sport it self. There are still SUP races on the beaches of California, but now our attention is also on the Mid-West and even Paddle Ultralongdistance races in the deep and conservative south like Alabama.
SUP USA and namely Kristin Thomas with other volunteers are trying to keep the Sport unified in the United States. This is why we are reading their Newsletter with great interest and like to relay some information to a broader audience.
What is the most popular form of racing in the United States?
SUP USA conducted a survey to find out more about what type of SUP Races their members prefer.
The most popular race in the US, like in most places, is the Longdistance Race. With a distance between 6 to 15K, this distance hits the sweet spot for most paddlers. This data seems to align with all other races world wide, as most tours conduct their distance races withing this spectrum of length. Next up are shorter distance races and downwind races. We are particularly happy to see that Downwind Races are still a popular thing, despite the SUP sport having mostly adapted to the flat water format.
Interestingly enough Sprint Races are just a bit more popular than Ultra Longdistance Races. We here at the Stand Up Magazin have always been somewhat baffled by the fact that sprint races seem not the be that popular at all. If you look at the SUP World Rankings for example, the sprint category is the one that has the fewest races. Whitewater racing, another spectacular and spectator friendly form of racing barely makes the cut. No matter how much we wish for the success of Whitewater Races (remember the Payette River Games) this category will remain an extreme small niche most likely forever.
New Program Director Anna Zolnierowski
Introducing Anna Zolnierowski (nee Winder), our USA SUP Program Director. Anna’s background in project management and event planning coupled with her love for being on the water and SUP made for the perfect match last year while we prepared for our first USA SUP National Championships and she helped us pull off a successful event. Since then, Anna’s been working behind the scenes of USA SUP supporting our volunteer-based Board of Directors and overseeing operations.
Anna’s first introduction to SUP was in 2017 in Alameda, California. She quickly jumped into racing, earned an instructor certification, taught SUP summer camp, worked in a SUP retail shop, and traveled to Costa Rica and Baja Mexico for some international warm-water paddling. Somewhere in there she even moved out of San Francisco, where her 9-5 was based, to Alameda to be a 10 minute walk from the dock for her postwork 5-9. Being that close to the water and having such easy access to paddling was a dream come true.
Last year she moved once more, this time trading the Pacific Ocean for the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains in Boulder, Colorado. Paddling is a bit more restrictive now on lakes and reservoirs, but always has magnificent mountain backdrop views. A few words from Anna: “Even though I’m not on my board as much as I used to be, I love that I get to be involved in the sport from a different perspective now. Everything that USA SUP is working on from race standardization to community building to educational resource and program development with the goal of bringing awareness to the sport and eventually taking it to the Olympics is very exciting to me.”