ECA Championships Sprint Race

We at the Stand Up Magazin love Sprint and Tech. Races and an arena like the one in Hungary most people can only dream of. SUP racing in a stadium like setting must be a dream.

Dream of a set up | Foto: ECA

Starting with the ladies sprint, Natalia Novitskaia won her second gold. This women is a real power house and it is too bad we have not seen her racing against the rest of the world in the past years. Her time of 59.098 was less than 2.5 seconds slower than the worlds best time held by April Zilg in 2022. Back then April paddled the same distance in 56.494 seconds. The current ICF World Title belongs to Seychelle Webster paddling a time of 1:03.048 in Thailand. Given these numbers, Natalia showed a true world class performance. Who knows maybe Natalia will travel to Sarasota in November.

In fact all top 7 came in faster then Seychelles time from Thailand, that shows great performance by all of them. However we also have to consider that in sprints wind conditions come into play. If we recall correctly in Thailand there were some afternoon breezes. Wind can easily make a difference of a few seconds in either direction.

1Natalia NOVITSKAIAAIN59.098
2Kyriaki LOGOTHETIGRE01:00.51.364
3Marta APANASEWICZPOL01:01.32.177
4Olga MERKULOVAAIN01:01.42.264
5Claudia POSTIGLIONEITA01:01.52.371
6Skadi LANGBEINGER01:02.12.984
7Csillag KOCSISHUN01:02.93.764
8Iva DUNDOVACZE01:03.84.657

Men Sprint Race

Andri Kraitor won the title with a time of 46.449 seconds which is just about 2 seconds behind Connor Baxters best time from 2022 with 44.340 but also faster than Noic Gariouds winning time from 2023 in Thailand with 50.758. With a time like this Andrii showcased that he is a big force in SUP Sprints and can be matched up with the best of the best. Andrii was 3rd in Thailand with a time of 51.76 that was +1.01 seconds behind Noic Garioud. We can only hope that we have another match up between Noic, Connor and Andrii in Sarasota in November.

The second place went to the Lituanian Vadim Korobov who brought in the first medal for his country in an international event. Manuel Hoyuela crossed the finish line just a hair behind Vadim for 3rd.

Just like in the ladies all 200m time in the finals were faster than the times in Thailand. Race course condition can not be ruled out for the rather big difference in time.

1Andrii KRAITORBUL46.449
2Vadim KOROBOVLTU47.7221.273
3Manuel HOYUELAESP47.8351.386
4Phaedon DOUKASGRE49.5793.13
5Christian ANDERSENDEN49.6123.163
6Ivan SHIRSHOVAIN50.3393.89
7Nikolaos MALEKAKISGRE50.3863.937
8Tommaso PAMPINELLAITA51.6395.19

Given the opportunity we would like to praise SUP 200 sprints. This format is truly the most exciting and reminds us of the 100m track and field sprints. We do not understand why so few reace organizers old 200m sprints.

Even if you don’t have all of the best athletes present, if somebody beats a former best time it has some weight. The competition truly comes from racing against the clock. Yes racecourse conditions matter and can make a difference, so it would be ideal if all the best paddlers compete at the same day under the same conditions. However, in the ECA Sprint Race we can neglect the low turn out for a moment and compare the times of former winners.

This is what makes sprint racing very interesting because the course is always exactly the same. Only the wind is a factor, if we had 200m sprints indoor then this would be the most ideal way to find the fastest paddler independent from outside factors.