Published on March 17th, 2015 | by Supworldmagazine

SUP Racing in Lanes, good news or bad news?

Interesting race format chosen by the organizers of the Australian Flatwater SUPFest. Based on what is going in Rowing and Flat Water Canoeing/Kayaking, paddlers race against each other in lanes, for various distances (200 m and 1000m).

While the novelty of the format can be fun the first few times, it is likely to lose a lot of the spirit SUP races carry, which somehow has (and should keep?) a sense of the waterman feel… And in our opinion, racing in lanes has nothing in common with surfing culture!

According to us at Sup World Mag, paddling a stand up board is a different experience; it carries a special feel, half way between surfing and outrigger canoeing, and we strongly believe that this is also what people are looking for when entering a SUP race. The island feel.

There are countless sports that vanished due to poor development; we fear it will be, if not the end, a drastic step back to have SUP races in lane becoming the norm.

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