It has been a while since we updated the top 10 list of the SUP World Rankings, looking at results and changes. It has also been a while since we had a race with a good star ranking. Looking at the athletes, numbers are starting to spread apart. The point differences are growing quite big, the number of races too and in some cases the last recorded results go back a few months. This show cases, how competitive SUP Racing is all over the place and the only platform where we can gather some data and get a sense of unity is the SUP World Rankings but even here the picture starts getting a bit murky. We start with the men Longdistance Ranking and you see why.
Men Longdistance
Donato Freens is far up front and also by far the busiest paddler. His last win was the SUP Race Namur a 2-Star Ranked race. There have not been too many changes in the top 10 except that Fernando Perez made top 8 with his result in Namur and Ricardo Rossi winning the Italian Champs moving to 9th place. If we look at the athletes last results we can see that they are all in many different places and even date back to the EURO TOUR Race in Barcelona. With a top 10 list like this we went ahead and actually calculated the average points per race. By looking at these numbers we are getting a bit of a different picture. Looking at Shuri for example he won all the EURO TOUR races scoring an average of 569.9 Michael Booth who is point wise actually standing still at his 3rd place in Barcelona is still looking strong with an average of 414.965 and actually in second. If you are a SUP Race enthusiast you might find these numbers quite interesting as we added them for all the categories for now. (The philosophical part we will talk about on the bottom)
| Rank | Name | Nation | Points | Races | Last Result | Change | Ave. |
| 1 | Donato Freens | NED | 4224.03 | 11 | 1. Naumr SUP Race | → | 384.0027 |
| 2 | Rai Taguchi | JPN | 2679.67 | 7 | 1.Trump P.S. Crescent- BCH | → | 382.81 |
| 3 | Shuri Araki | JPN | 2279.6 | 4 | 1. Barcelona | → | 569.9 |
| 4 | Filippo Mercuriali | ITA | 2250.57 | 8 | 3. Campione Italiano FISSW | → | 281.3213 |
| 5 | Blue Ewer | UK | 2163.4 | 7 | 1. Falmouth Bay Open | → | 309.0571 |
| 6 | Aaron Sanchez | ESP | 2055.97 | 5 | 3. Namur SUP Race | → | 411.194 |
| 7 | Ole Schwarz | BRD | 1987.32 | 9 | 6. SUP & Wingfoil Festival | → | 220.8133 |
| 8 | Fernando Perez | ESP | 1700.95 | 6 | 4. Namur SUP Race | NEW | 283.4917 |
| 9 | Riccardo Rossi | ITA | 1673.82 | 8 | 1. Campione Italianao | NEW | 209.2275 |
| 10 | Michael Booth | AUS | 1659.86 | 4 | 3. Barcelona | ↓ 2 | 414.965 |
Women Longdistance
The ladies scores are quite interesting. Mariecarmen and Eseperanza are both counting 4 races while Mariecarmen runs a slightly higher average due to some better results and higher ranked races. In contrast, Cecilia Pampinella has twice as many races but a really low average due to her results at lower ranked races. Duna Gordillo is back in 8th place where she was after the Sancti Petri race but then fell out. Kimberly Barnes from the US is also new in 7th with her phenomenal win at the Namur SUP Race.
| Rank | Name | Nation | Points | Races | Last Result | Change | Ave. |
| 1 | Mariecarmen Rivera | PUR | 1328.75 | 4 | 2. Barcelona | → | 332.1875 |
| 2 | Cecilia Pampinella | ITA | 1316.41 | 8 | 1. Campiona Italiano FISSW | ↑ 2 | 164.5513 |
| 3 | Esperanza Barreras | ESP | 1298 | 4 | 1. Arnoia SUP Challenge | ↓ 1 | 324.5 |
| 4 | Juliette DuHaime | ARG | 1206.79 | 6 | 9. Barcelona | ↓ 1 | 201.1317 |
| 5 | Susak Molinero | ESP | 1036.42 | 6 | 1. Nordhausen | → | 172.7367 |
| 6 | Claudia Postiglione | ITA | 991.61 | 7 | 3. Namur SUP Race | → | 141.6586 |
| 7 | Kimberly Barnes | USA | 880.35 | 5 | 1. Namur SUP Race | NEW | 176.07 |
| 8 | Duna Grodillo | ESP | 795.6 | 4 | 2. Naumr SUP Race | NEW | 198.9 |
| 9 | Iona Rivet | FRA | 780.05 | 5 | 2. Pornichet Glisse Trophy | ↓ 2 | 156.01 |
| 10 | Alba Frey | ESP | 707.71 | 3 | 3. Barcelona | ↓ 2 | 235.9033 |
Tech. Race Men
In the Tech. Race category the discrepancy is not as big as in long-distance this is why we did not run an average point count. We can see the changes are minimal as Tech. Races are not being held as frequent as Longdistance ones. We might not see a change in rankings all the way to the ICF SUP World Cup in Crete in September.
| Rank | Name | Nation | Points | Races | Last Result | Change |
| 1 | Filippo Mercuriali | ITA | 1863.3 | 5 | 5. Campione Italiano FISSW | → |
| 2 | Rai Taguchi | JPN | 1514.8 | 3 | 1. TRUMP Paddle Sessions | → |
| 3 | Sergio Cantoral | ESP | 1464.26 | 5 | 4. Pornichet Glisse Trophy | → |
| 4 | Donato Freens | NED | 1415.32 | 4 | 2. BP Battle of the Bay | → |
| 5 | Itzel Delgado | PER | 1363.35 | 3 | 4. SUP Addict Champs. | → |
| 6 | Paolo Marconi | ITA | 1314.43 | 4 | 2. Campiona Italiano FISSW | → |
| 7 | Filippo Alberti | ITA | 1206.4 | 4 | 9. Campiona Italiano FISSW | ↑ 1 |
| 8 | Cameron Tripney | RSA | 1121.94 | 3 | 6. Barcelona | ↓ 1 |
| 9 | Ivan De Frutos Ruiz | ESP | 1024.3 | 4 | 2. XI SUP Race Playas Campello | → |
| 10 | Christian Andersen | DEN | 1003.79 | 3 | 1. ECA EURO SUP | → |
Tech. Race Women
There are no notable changes and at a closer look we see that all results that mattered are from quite a while ago.
| Rank | Name | Nation | Points | Races | Last Result | Change |
| 1 | Juliette DuHaime | ARG | 1063.75 | 3 | 2. Barcelona | → |
| 2 | Esperanza Barreras | ESP | 924.35 | 3 | 1. Barcelona | → |
| 3 | Cecilia Pampinella | ITA | 856.75 | 4 | 1. Campione Italiano FISSW | → |
| 4 | Claudia Postiglione | ITA | 675.87 | 3 | 3. ECA EURO SUP | → |
| 5 | Paris Katniss | USA | 431.77 | 2 | 2. Spring SUP Race* | → |
| 6 | Kyriaki Logotheti | GRE | 399.7 | 2 | 1. ECA EURO SUP | → |
| 7 | Marta Apanasewicz | POL | 393.74 | 3 | 8. ECA EURO SUP | → |
| 8 | Lemekha Vira | UKR | 391.01 | 3 | 4. Campiona Italiano FISSW | ↑ 2 |
| 9 | Jessica Matos | BRA | 341.2 | 2 | 2. Ultimate Paddle Brazil* | ↓ 1 |
| 10 | Supatchaya Kanthong | THA | 329 | 2 | 1. SUP Addict Champs | ↓ 2 |
Sprint Races: There have been no sprint races since the ECA in Hungary so we decided not to run a list. Franky the interest in sprint races seems not to be all that big.
Conclusion and hopes
By looking at the data we may conclude that the competitive SUP Race World is not following a set pattern or tour. Other than the EURO TOUR with its 6 races there is really nothing left in the world of Elite SUP Racing to follow. We see one of our favorite SUP Athletes at a race here or there where they mostly win due to lack of competition. The next time we see Shrimpy going head to head with Donato, Rai and Boothy might not be until the ISA and Denmark and the ICF in Florida. Some people say that does not matter races are growing with huge participation and that is true, lots of amateurs and weekend warriors are participating in many SUP Races. How ever if you are looking to follow a story line through the year, you are not getting one.
The question we have to ask ourselves is where do we want to go with this? What are our hopes and dreams?
We can look at a SUP Sport like Marathon Running with some big events where people of all skill level aspire to go to and there fore events have a huge crowd. There will be no World Cup or over all ranking or a final world champion for pros. Things are loosely organized and pros in marathon make their money by appearance fees, coaching and some sponsor endorsement as well as price money. There is very little, to no tournament sentiment like in other pro sports, such as Golf, Tennis, Surfing, Formula 1, Ski, Snowboard, Nordic Ski and many many more.
Our hopes and dreams for the sport are different. We like to see marathon like event through out the year and at the same time we like to see the worlds top paddlers following a schedule of races around the world to such marathon / festival type events. We like to see a clear annual world champion, that is recognized by all. It would be joyful to have something like season finale at the end of the year where everybody comes together to celebrate a season of racing and crowing the best paddler of the year. We like to see rivalries in the sport like we had in the past, rivalries that create stories to follow and rematches to look forward to.