New champions were crowned and a new generation stood up at the Hoe Toa Paddle Championships in New Zealand on the weekend, where Penelope Strickland and Tara Hope earned national titles, Australia’s Lincoln Dews gatecrashed the party with a clean sweep and over 200 paddlers hit the water for a big two days of racing.
The famous French Riviera hosted the inaugural Villefranche Paddle Race in style on the weekend, with a solid swell turning the usually placid Mediterranean Sea into a Salt Creek-style arena for a race that won’t be forgotten any time soon.
In an interview with North Carolina Press Release, Fiona Wylde talks about Annabel Anderson’s hiatus from SUP, the Carolina Cup’s Graveyard Race, her season performance in 2017, and her plans for 2018. Fiona cheers the birth of the newly formed Paddle League, shares her thoughts about the state-of-the-sport, women in SUP, 14-foot boards, and her ongoing challenge with Type 1 diabetes.
The 32nd Annual Santa Cruz Paddlefest was one for the books as stand up paddle surfers and racers took to the waters in Santa Cruz, California. The 10k Pro Elite race for both the men and women were the talk of the weekend as the results had everyone buzzing.
Annabel Anderson of New Zealand, the fastest and world’s top-ranked standup paddle board woman each year since 2012, will take a break in early 2018 for surgery to address a “long-term and horrifically painful ailment” and to fully recover from a serious concussion sustained earlier in the year.
The Carolina Cup, the world’s largest festival combining paddle races, clinics, product displays, and entertainment has attracted the support of Quiksilver Waterman as title sponsor.
The Association of Paddlesurfing Professionals (APP), announced today that it will be bringing the opening leg of its 2018 World Tour to central London for the first time this summer.
Join hundreds of local NZ and International paddlers on New Zealand’s Hibiscus Coast for a fun weekend of paddling workshops, beach races in and out of the surf, inshore flatwater racing and downwind distance paddling at the NZSUP National Festival of Paddleboarding, proudly brought to you by Sol Republic, Magrette, Olukai and Maui Jim.
If you’ve always wanted to paddle board on the Thames river in London, a new race is being offered this Fall. The London Crossing is a 15.5 km (~9.5 mi) race for experienced standup paddle racers that will run alongside the Big Ben Challenge which is a 20 km (~12.4 mi) paddle suited best for experienced paddle boarders. Both the London Crossing and Big Ben Challenge will run on September 23, 2018.
Over 230 competitors on 58 teams came out to the first ever Red Bull Privateers Stand Up Paddle Race in the Ten Thousand Islands.
Tahiti's biggest stand up paddle event, the Air France Paddle Festival, is back for its 5th consecutive year and will be hitting the beautiful shores of Maeva Beach on Saturday April 7, 2018. Recently announced as the first event of The Paddle League's new World Tour, the event is expected to attract even more competitors than previous years, especially high profile athletes that are gunning for the crown.
2017’s Guadiana Challenge exceeded all our exceptions’, explained Nick Robinson from Algarve SUP, founder, and organizer of the successful Portuguese stand up paddle event. Over 140 paddlers and hundreds of spectators came out to enjoy an amazing 3 days of fun in Mértola, Southern Portugal on the Guadiana River.