ICF SUP World Championships Sarasota 2024 Recap

The world of Stand Up Paddling met in Sarasota from November 19th to the 24th at the Nathan Benderson Park for the annual ICF SUP World Championships. With about give or take 500 participants the event was well attended despite the ICF hoping to surpass the number of 700 from their previous event in Thailand. Most important: All names in the sport were there and so there was no lack of suspenseful SUP racing, upsets and surprises.

From a non-athlete perspective the ICF did a very good job organizing and operating an event of this size. How ever there is definitely some room for improvement. The biggest upset for the racers was, the last minute change of the start procedure in the Tech. Race. Athletes trained and prepared for a running beach start, just to find out that, evidently the water entry at the Benderson Park was not suitable for running starts. However, we were told that the topography of the shore line was known in advance according to one athlete, who was seeking out lakes in their region with this particular shore line to train exactly for that. Most elite racers agreed that they would have been capable to do a running start, while amateurs would have had their struggles. The ICF decided to switch to a sitting start, which did not sit well with many.

From a production point of view, the ICF will need some creative help in the future. While the background technology was in place with all the graphics and the drone pictures, the front end delivery as not up to par with the product the ISA delivered in Denmark. First and foremost the SUP Sport is too small to ask viewers to pay for the content, particularly when everybody found out that the actual production company was broadcasting the entire event for free on their own website. We need every set of eyes we can get on our sport, a paywall turns viewer ship down and that is highly counter productive. Everybody agreed on that, even the people of the very production company who are not involved in the sport at all. From an entertainment point of view all the ICF needs to do is to watch some WSL or ISA production and they will understand how to deliver a better product. Make it a TV Show!

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100m Sprint Finals

Shortening the race course to 100m was a very popular decision. After all 100m is the gold standard in many sports with sprints. This short and fast format is very spectator friendly and there was never a boring moment with back to back heats all day long. Katiniss took the SUP World a bit by surprise winning the title with just a very tiny lead over SeyChelle.

Women A Final

1	Katniss PARIS	USA	28.32
2	Sey CHELLE	USA	28.71	0.38
3	Alba ALONSO	ESP	29.24	0.91
4	Mariecarmen RIVERA	PUR	29.84	1.51
5	Juliette DUHAIME	ARG	29.91	1.59
6	Maddie MILLER	USA	29.99	1.66
7	Tarryn KING	RSA	30.63	2.31
8	Kaitlyn MCELROY	USA	32.61	4.29

Andrii Kraitor came to Sarasota with one goal: Win the SUP Sprint World Title. He was able to do so and secured his his win with barely half a second ahead of Manuel Hoyuela.

Men A Final

1	Andrii KRAITOR	BUL	23.05
2	Manuel HOYUELA	ESP	23.47	0.41
3	Cameron TRIPNEY	RSA	23.67	0.62
4	Rai TAGUCHI	JPN	25.1	2.05
5	Christian ANDERSEN	DEN	25.35	2.3
6	Aaron SANCHEZ	ESP	25.43	2.37
7	Ricardo AVILA	PUR	25.59	2.53
8	Phaedon DOUKAS	GRE	26.13	3.08

One major challenge that day was, that the race course was pointing up wind. The angle of the wind created a disadvantage for some lanes as not everybody had the same exposure to wind. This is unfortunate, but we also have to acknowledge that you can’t have a water sport like ours in an entire sterile environment.

Interview with Katniss Paris the 2024 SUP Sprint World Champ

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Tech. Race Finals

Despite the sitting start and without the beach chicane, the Tech. Races delivered all the excitements and photo opportunities spectators and the media like. In the final heat of the women’s open there even was a big controversy with Marie-Carmen Rivera getting pushed off her board at the first buoy due to an action taken by Seychelle. Intentionally or not is not our call and in a second incident surrounding Julliette Duhaime we were faced with a second incident. Now we were faced with a very complicated situation, the race executives were faced with protests and had to analyze the situation over and over. The decision must not have been easy as we did not get an official women’s podium until the day after. Seychelle ended up with a DQ while Juliettes initial DQ was later reinstated. The incident and the time it took for a final decision showed that the ICF is not yet 100% confident taking swift and decisive action in situations like this.

Women A Final

1	Duna GORDILLO	ESP	04:36.0
2	Esperanza BARRERAS	ESP	04:43.0	7.01
3	Rika OKUAKI	JPN	04:48.4	12.43
4	Juliette DUHAIME	ARG	04:53.7	17.74
5	Alba ALONSO	ESP	04:56.9	20.97
6	Natsumi BABA	JPN	04:59.5	23.53
7	Mariecarmen RIVERA	PUR	05:10.2	34.18
	Sey CHELLE	USA	DSQ

Men A Final

1	Noic GARIOUD	FRA	03:52.0
2	Shuri ARAKI	JPN	03:54.3	2.35
3	Manuel HOYUELA	ESP	03:54.6	2.68
4	Vaic GARIOUD	FRA	04:00.7	8.73
5	Christian ANDERSEN	DEN	04:03.2	11.18
6	Rai TAGUCHI	JPN	04:06.8	14.86
7	Aaron SANCHEZ	ESP	04:07.9	15.9
8	Antonio MORILLO	ESP	04:12.0	19.99

Longdistance Races

We got incredibly lucky and were able to catch a boat with our own driver to follow the men’s distance race. It was incredible and it allowed us to get some exclusive footage and pictures from the start. Despite the round course with buoy turns the men’s race was never boring. There was not once a draft train and the leading pack of 14 was tight. It was impossible to make out a possible winner, the race got decided only in the last few hundred meters.

Men Top 5

1	Shuri ARAKI	JPN	05:41.8
2	Noic GARIOUD	FRA	05:46.1	00:04.4
3	Eri TENORIO	BRA	05:47.6	00:05.8
4	Ethan BRY	FRA	05:50.5	00:08.7
5	Manuel HOYUELA	ESP	05:57.6	00:15.9

Women Top 5

1	Esperanza BARRERAS	ESP	11:50.2
2	Mariecarmen RIVERA	PUR	11:54.7	00:04.5
3	Juliette DUHAIME	ARG	11:55.9	00:05.7
4	Rika OKUAKI	JPN	11:57.0	00:06.8
5	Sey CHELLE	USA	12:10.1	00:19.9

Final word

We could write an entire essay on different aspects of the event and the state of SUP it reflected, but we save this for later. We could also fill books mentioning athletes and their accomplishments because there were so many. Two things that stood out to us outside of the elite division was the rise of Csillag Kocsis who won gold in the Tech. Race and the Longdistance. The other one was the 3 times gold medalist Peter Weidert in the 50+ category who was the only athlete of the event pulling off such a strong performance.

Other surprises included the Junior Men Sprint podium with Matai Barbu from Rumania winning gold, putting his country on the map for the first time. We also had some new junior men in the Tech. Race with Japans Nariakira SHIMAZU winning gold. Gold and silver in the Longdistance Junior Men went also to Japan with Kotaro MIYAHIRA and Nariakira SHIMAZU. Italys Nicolo RICCO was on the podium twice once 3rd LD Juniors and once in 2nd in Junior Tech.

Over all it was a great event and we sure have a great community. It also became clear that the ICF has not 100% understood our sport yet and is trying to fit SUP into a canoe box. If they truly want to help SUP and its popularity they should be taking SUPs surfing roots under consideration and using some of their budget to hire people helping them market the sport the right way and set up a good show. If we want to attract bigger sponsors we have to deliver a product that attracts a broader viewership.

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Voices of SUP