Logbook: World Sup Festival (Santa Pola)

The world of SUP goes head-to-head on the open sea

by Paolo Marconi

The weekend of May 17–18 kicked off the two most anticipated weeks in the world of SUP racing, with the World SUP Festival in Santa Pola. This event, along with the one in Barcelona the following week, brings together all the competitive paddlers from around the globe, competing back-to-back in two incredible races.

Now in its fifth edition, the World SUP Festival has been one of the most eagerly awaited races of the season ever since it appeared on the international calendar in 2018. The event has always delivered unforgettable experiences for participants, thanks to its unique course and the conditions offered each year by the Mediterranean Sea.

This year again, two races are scheduled: the long distance on Saturday, May 17, and the technical race on Sunday, May 18. The long-distance race has become a classic for fans of open-ocean racing. As the second stop of the professional EuroTour circuit, this 15-kilometer point-to-point race starts from Tabarca Island, circles the island for about 5 kilometers, and then heads across open water to the finish line on Santa Pola beach. The technical race on Sunday features a buoy course with an elimination format—a thrilling race that always offers great excitement and will count towards the newly established European SUP League.

Day 1
Although the start is scheduled for 11:30, the day begins early for the participants. At 8:30, the ferry that will take us to the island of Tabarca departs from the port of Santa Pola, loaded with race-ready SUP riders. The boards of the roughly 200 athletes had already been transported to the island on Friday evening to simplify logistics. Once we land in Tabarca at around 9:30, the search for the boards begins. Imagine 200 boards scattered across the small island’s harbor square, with just as many athletes trying to find their equipment. The last time I took part, it took me nearly 10 minutes to find my board. This time, with a bit of luck, Susak found both our boards right away, and we began preparing the gear for this long race day.

At 10:45, the athlete briefing begins. Belar Diaz, founder of the Eurotour, and Daniel Parres, the event organizer, explain the route and the rules we need to follow. The course is the classic loop around the island before heading down toward Santa Pola. The wind hasn’t picked up yet, and it looks like it will be a flat, hot race, even though this stretch of the Mediterranean Sea always has a bit of movement due to the large body of water. The women will start first at 11:30, followed by the men ten minutes later. The start is from a seated position on the board, lined up between a boat and a flag on the shore.

About 20 minutes before the start, we’re all in the water warming up. The sea is relatively calm, and a light breeze is blowing, meaning we’ll have a headwind around the island and a tailwind on the way back to Santa Pola.

Just minutes before the women’s start, I approach the lineup to watch Susak’s start and notice Dani, the event organizer, talking to the women, who still aren't lined up. Plot twist! Suddenly, we’re all called back to shore. The start is postponed, and we’re told there will be a new briefing with further updates.

With all the athletes back on land, we attend a second meeting, during which the reasons for the delay are explained and we are given more information about the course. Tabarca Island is a nature reserve, and apparently, some local bureaucrat decided, just ten minutes before the start and during the fifth edition of this event, that human-powered boards posed a threat to the reserve’s preservation. Meanwhile, dozens of motorboats cruise around the island undisturbed, and crowds of tourists pour onto the beaches. Yet another example of pseudo-environmentalist hypocrisy imposed by bureaucracy.

Despite the last-minute setback, the organizers responded quickly, adapting the course in a way that didn’t diminish the race distance and perhaps even made it more interesting. Instead of the circumnavigation, the new course involved a half-loop around the island, a return to the starting shoreline, and the usual final stretch toward Santa Pola, totaling 14.5 kilometers.

And the athletes? What happens when an athlete has followed their pre-race routine since early morning and then sees the start time pushed back, without the chance to go home for food or supplies, since we’re on a small island and all gear bags are already loaded on the boats? As a great sport professional I had the pleasure of working with once said: The best athlete is the one who can adapt the most. And so it was. All the athletes had to adjust to the situation and the schedule change, some more successfully than others, but all of them showed great professionalism as they returned to the water to line up at the new start time, about an hour later than originally planned, ready to battle it out on the new course, with the wind having picked up in the meantime.

Susak had a very good start and stayed in the top 10 for more than half the race. In the final stretch, however, she was overtaken and finished in 11th place. The women's race was won by Esperanza Barreras, followed by Mariecarmen Rivera and Alba Frey.

My start was also strong, and for the first few kilometers, I was in the top 5. Then a moment of hesitation cost me a few positions, and I found myself chasing the lead group with a bit of a gap. Once the downwind section began, it took me a couple of kilometers to find my rhythm and get a good feeling with my board, losing a few more spots along the way. The waves created by the wind mixed with the wake from several ferries and a slightly side-on swell, making this part of the race highly technical and demanding full concentration and careful reading of the sea. Once I found my rhythm, I maintained the gap behind me, but I couldn’t close in on the group ahead. I finished the race in 13th place, with a bit of regret for missing out on the top 10, but a great sense of satisfaction for having competed with the world’s best and still feeling competitive.

A race like this can be considered at world championship level, given the level of the athletes competing. In fact, in some ways, the competition is even fiercer, since the ISA World Championships only allow two athletes per nation, while this race featured the best from each country. Just consider that in the top 15, there were five French athletes and three Spaniards. The men’s race was once again dominated by Shuri Araki, who proved untouchable. Second place went to the formidable Mallorcan Aaron Sanchez, with Frenchman Arthur Arutkin climbing into third.

Day 2:

Sunday’s program featured a technical race from the newly formed circuit called the European Sup League. This is a circuit recognized by the European Surfing Federation and national federations that host the various events. The race, part of the World Sup Festival, was the third stop of this year’s circuit. The last two stages will take place in Portugal and Italy during the second half of the season.

The competition kicks off early with the first heats in each category. The course includes six buoys, four to turn left around and two to the right. The start is very technical and tricky due to the seabed dropping suddenly and then rising onto a runnable sandbar. Throughout the day, we see athletes using various techniques to perform at their best and overcome the tricky start in the most effective way possible. In this type of race, the start is crucial due to the extremely high level of the participants and the limited room for overtaking.

The competition begins with the qualifiers: the top six men and top four women advance directly, while the rest go to the repechages. The early rounds are an opportunity for the top athletes to study each other and test out the course, but from the quarterfinals onward, things get serious.

The level of competition is truly exceptional, and the excitement doesn’t disappoint. Both Susak and I reached the semifinals, but unfortunately, we both suffered from less-than-perfect starts and ended up in the B final. In the B final, we both bounced back, getting off to strong starts and putting in good performances, finishing the event on a high note. Susak finished second in the B final and I came in third. It’s striking to see the caliber of athletes in the B final, world champions and legends of our sports, so you can imagine just how strong the competitors in the A final, fighting for the top 12 spots, must be!

The men’s and women’s finals feature two laps of the course, increasing the distance from 700 meters to 1,400 meters with a beach run. The show starts right from the beginning. In the men’s race, Shuri Araki dominates again at this distance. Aaron Sanchez finishes second with a textbook overtake just a few buoys before the end, and third place goes to the current ESL ranking leader, Christian Andersen. In the women’s final, Mariecarmen Rivera wins the race by maintaining the lead from the start, followed by overall ranking leader Alba Frey in second, and Mallorca’s own Duna Gordillo in third.

And so concludes this event, which brought together the best athletes on the planet to compete over various distances. Only a handful of top competitors in our sport were absent from this event. Once again, the World Sup Festival delivered excitement to both participants and spectators. A big thank-you to everyone who worked hard to bring the world of competitive SUP together in Santa Pola.