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| 2023 ICF SUP World Championships - Image from SUNOVA Surfboards |
Last month my blog looked at the current situation with SUP Racing and now, part 2! I believe that there is no point in writing about problems without having some suggestions on the way forward and here are my thoughts.
But first, my response to some feedback from part 1.
I am aware of the CAS ruling in 2020 that put the ISA in the position where they are the sole representative for SUP with the IOC. I am also aware that the ISA have recently announced their SUP Commission, it took them over 4 years to get that sorted out.
I know organising things is a difficult task and rarely appreciated, but 4 years to get individuals together to talk about the future is not what the sport needs. In that time the ICF took their SUP World Championships to a different level, their first was in 2019 and the event quickly, in my opinion, overtook the ISA event in event organisation and participation. Neither World Championship is perfect but getting both organisations to concede that they should work together to build the future of SUP Racing would be a massive step forward.
ONE SUP World Championship, ONE set of champions.
With that out of the way here are some areas that I think, need to be addressed for our Olympic SUP future starting with…
Race Formats
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| Michael Booth winning at the 2019 ICF World Championships. Image ICF |
Long Distance Race 25+ km
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| The iconic 11 Cities SUP Tour. Image @sup11citytour / @EDWIN |
This is the catch-all for races over 40km, marathon events, ultra events, multi-day events. These are the most aspirational events to take part in and will always sit outside any Olympic future. This is by far the broadest category and the easiest to ‘organise’, no more than a label for events to use.
Distance Race 15 - 25 km
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| The start of the women's distance race at the 2017 ISA World Championships in Denmark. Image SUP Racer / @georgiasphoto |
A category already used in both World Championships but recently diluted into a shorter event. Make no mistake this is, or at least it should be the Blue Ribband event for SUP. Distance races should be a challenge for Elite athletes yet still be achievable for many.
A race distance of 18km should be the minimum distance at international events for Elite athletes. 2 hours of racing on a course that presents a challenge for all paddlers.
Short Course Race 10 - 15 km
It is not always possible for event organisers to create a longer course and it seems sensible to categorise shorter races separately. This allows organisers the chance to be more creative with shorter, higher-intensity races and separates distance from technical racing.
Technical Race
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| The start of a Technical Race heat at the 2023 ICF World Championships. Image from SUNOVA Surfboards |
The technical race is, for many the highlight of an event. Close racing with multiple turns and some running. The Technical Race is almost standardised now, with a running start on a W or M shaped course with a turn on land requiring a dismount and a running finish. All that is needed here is to set a distance, between 3 and 6km would seem to hit the sweet spot for this event.
Sprint
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| Seychelle, 2023 ICF SUP Sprint World Champion. Image Georgia Schofield |
An undiluted test of power and technique, a straight-line sprint starting and finishing on the water, no turns, no running, only paddling as fast as possible to the finish line. The purest race, head to head. The strongest wins. Course distance should be standardised to 200m.
Technical Sprint
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| David Leão, ISA Sprint World Champion 2024. Image Dryrobe |
Combine the Technical Race and the Sprint and you get the Technical Sprint, a new category for an existing event. Held over a very short course, my suggestion is a 200m race, certainly no more than 300m This is the ‘Sprint’ race that can have a running start or a turn or a running finish. Fast, close racing for small fields, lots of heats leading to semi-finals and finals.
Those are the 5 main categories but I started this with a suggestion of 7+ and here are two categories, one new and one old, that I think would benefit massively from ISA and ICF collaborating.
Whitewater SUP Racing
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| Whitewater SUP. Image from Airboard |
This is my sixth suggestion. An exciting development in the sport and one where the ICF surely should take the lead given their experience with existing World Championships in canoe Wildwater, Whitewater, Slalom and more. Whitewater SUP is growing at a rapid rate and must form part of the discussion on the future of SUP.
BOP Racing
My seventh suggestion and a blast from the past. For those who do not know BOP is Battle Of the Paddle racing, and for many years this was the pinnacle of the sport, before SUP World Championships existed the annual pilgrimage to Dana Point was the event for the best paddlers in the world. Racing in the surf on an ocean course was a huge challenge, even for elite paddlers.
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| Boothy in action at the Salt Creek BOP race in 2014. Image BOSUP |
BOP style events have all but died out now despite the calls of a vocal minority for them to come back and I think this is a shame, it is a very exciting race format that has had to give way to more accessible racing.
If you have not seen any BOP style racing then here is the race coverage from that 2014 event
The revitalisation of BOP racing is an area where the ISA should take the lead and I believe this style of racing could, and should be back. The sport does not need two flatwater World Championships, it needs one flatter water and one ocean race.
It is interesting to look back at articles from 10 years ago, especially this from Chris Parker at SUP Racer on the 2014 BOP.
Why does racing need categorised race formats and distances?
My background is in data, really big data. And for almost any application categorising ‘stuff’ makes it easier to deal with, there are exceptions but in my experience of huge projects, using random ‘stuff’ to build things successfully is the exception.
SUP Racing is a huge project, worldwide with thousands of participants.
Standardised Race Formats will allow race organisers to match their events to International standards for racing. National Championships will follow suit and, ultimately an Olympic bid will be able to use those events as a standard, showing the world that SUP racing is mature enough for the biggest audience.
Standardisation of race formats and distances could help athletes qualify for World Championship events with ranking points allocated based on distance, shorter distances would give fewer qualification points which could strengthen fields at international races.
Standardisation also allows athletes to focus on their training.
There is a significant difference in training for a 10km event and an 18+km event. One is less than an hour of racing for an Elite field, the other is a 2 hour grind yet recent World Championship events have covered both longer and shorter courses, which makes no sense.
Standardisation is even more important for Sprinting, there is a huge difference between a True Sprint and a Technical Sprint yet this race seems to change at every World Championship. That is not the way to progress to the next, Olympic level.
Race Jerseys / Vests
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| Image from the live coverage of the 2024 ISA SUP World Championships distance race in Copenhagen. |
Using the same jersey or rash vest for every paddler on the course makes it very hard for dedicated SUP race fans, including the commentators on live broadcasts to identify paddlers at a distance and if the commentators at the recent ISA SUP World Championships had difficulty identifying paddlers then how will a new audience know who is who. In the image I grabbed from the video coverage, the commentators could only correctly identify one of these racers in the women's Elite race, having different race jerseys would have made their job much easier, even if was only to credit the athletes country correctly.
International events are about more than cheering on the paddlers you know, they are a contest between nations and being able to identify those nations is important for all fans.
National teams already have designs for their kit, they use it at the opening ceremonies, let them compete in their own colours.
Team sizes
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| Teams at the 2018 ISA World SUP Championships. Image ISA / Pablo Jimenez |
This is a more complicated area to talk about and raises questions about logistics and funding but those are for another day.
In order to make World Championships more manageable limits on the number of paddlers per race were introduced a long time ago, two per country in events at the ISA World Championships and four per country at the ICF World Championships, there is another area for some standardisation!
For spectators, the team events, especially the relay at the ISA World Championships, is a fantastic spectacle. If you have not watched it then the video is well worth your time.
For the shorter distances, paddlers compete individually and team tactics are unlikely to feature in races but for the distance race allowing more paddlers per country will lead to the evolution of team tactics, something that can only make racing more entertaining for spectators.
In the distance race drafting is the most obvious example where increased team sizes could make a difference, especially over a longer course. Paddlers working together for their team leader, allowing that leader to save energy for the finish. But that is not the only way larger teams could work, a strong team could send one paddler off from the start, sprinting ahead to see if it breaks the field knowing that their teammates could benefit later. Or use teammates to mark other strong paddlers, sticking on their tail if they try to make a break early and their team leader is unable to respond.
Setting a new, larger team size will, of course, lead to some nations losing out in the short term, nations with fewer paddlers could see that as a disadvantage but until it is tried no one will know for sure. I think that increasing team sizes can only benefit the sport and could help fulfil that Olympic dream.