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Team USA has won the 2015 ISA World Stand Up Paddle and Paddleboard Championship here in Mexico, claiming two more gold medals on the final day to run away with the Team Champions Trophy. After three straight years of Green & Gold dominance, Australia had to settle for the team silver medal this year.

Candice Appleby and Jack Bark won the Women’s SUP Course race and Men’s Prone Course Race respectively, killing any small hope the Aussies and Hawaiians had of closing the gap on the leaderboard.

Australia and Hawaii did show plenty of pride and fighting spirit on the final day though: Team Oz claimed its fourth straight Team Relay gold after an exciting finish with the Kiwis – 15 year old Ollie Houghton put in a heroic performance for the All Blacks but fell a metre or two short of Toby Cracknell at the line – before Jordan Mercer backed it up with her second individual prone gold. In the final event of the Championship, Hawaii boys Connor Baxter and Mo Freitas took gold and silver with a one-two finish in an uber-competitive Men’s SUP Course Race.

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Skip straight to results: Team Champions Leaderboard | Medal Table | Men’s SUP Course Race | Women’s SUP Course Race | Men’s SUP Distance Race | Women’s SUP Distance Race | Men’s Prone Course Race | Women’s Prone Course Race | Men’s Prone Distance Race | Women’s Prone Distance Race | Men’s SUP Surfing | Women’s SUP Surfing

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The men’s BOP-style race in and out through the surf proved a fitting finale to what has been a supremely entertaining week here in Mexico.

Connor and Mo paddled the perfect race for Team Hawaii. Slater Trout, Casper Steinfath and Leo Nika from Italy were setting the pace early while Connor recovered from a bad start, but the world number one soon took charge. When Connor made his inevitable break only Mo, who had set himself into a good position near the front of the main pack, could go with him.

Connor then played the team game and allowed Mo to sit comfortably on his wash; if it was a competitor from another team he would have done everything to shake him. The two worked together at the buoy turns to ensure a smooth second half of the race and an amazing one-two finish for this proud nation.

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The waves definitely made this race, which also made it super exciting for everyone watching. Sayulita resembled old school Doheny State Beach, with long, slow, fat rolling waves offering just enough to spice up the race without turning it into a salt creek carnage-fest. Connor was the first to take advantage of the bumps, sprinting over the top of a wave that nobody else could scratch into, instantly giving himself a gap on the field. Mo worked the small bumps hard on the next lap and was able to catch back up, but nobody else could match the Hawaiians.

Behind the Hawaiian domination, France’s Titouan Puyo, who had surged from mid-pack to medal contention on the second of four laps, just edged out two-time defending champ Casper Steinfath from Denmark in a photo finish. Casper was in the top four positions literally the entire race, and takes home a well deserved medal. Titouan had a lot more work to do though, getting caught up in the middle of the lead pack and having to patiently work his way up to the front.

Brazil’s Vinnicius Martins was only a metre or two outside the top four podium, having surfed the same wave to the beach as Titou and Casper. Bicho Jimenez, the hometown hero from the distance race, finished a solid 6th place to cap off a stellar week. Though such was the level of competition in this race, anyone who was in the final to begin with deserved a medal.

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Jamie Mitchell and myself, watching the action from the commentary booth directly in front of the course, mentioned several times how the pack was tight from 1st through to 24th. Even on the second lap, the guys sitting in last place were still only about 30 seconds behind the leaders. The accordion effect eventually came in, with the field spreading on the third and fourth legs, however the level of competition was so high that last place came in a 2 minutes behind Connor at the finish.

This tight field made for some great entertainment both on and off the water. Inspired by the Battle of the Paddle, this year’s ISA course race saw a chicane run through the sand at the end of each lap, with board caddies working overtime in the transition area.

Half an hour earlier, Candice took America’s 6th gold medal by outlasting Terrene Black (Australia), Penelope Strickland (New Zealand) and Lina Augaitis from Canada. The reigning BOP champ started hot favourite and lived up to the billing, going out hard and creating a big lead by the second lap. But in a swift turn of events, the chase pack caught a lucky set wave at a key moment and surfed all the way up to the leader, with the top four hitting the beach together at the end of the second lap. Suddenly the race was back on.

The drama didn’t end there though: In an amazing twist, Candice reversed her fortunes on the very next lap, managing to just stroke into a similar kind of set wave of her own, with the three girls on her tail just missing out and having to paddle all the way in to the beach. This created an insurmountable lead that produced Candice’s second individual gold and the team’s sixth.

It was a vintage performance form Candice, who has shown why she’s one of the all time greats in our sport.

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Outside the medals there were great performances all the way through the field. It was tough just qualifying for the women’s final, with only 12 spots on offer. One paddler that’s really impressed me this week is Brazil’s Lena Ribeiro, who finished 5th today to back up her 6th place in the distance race.

Lena’s 5th place matches the excellent 5th place finish from Vinni in the men’s final, with those two performances enough to secure Team Brazil 5th place on the overall Team Champions Leaderboard, narrowly ahead of the host nation.

Another standout today was Team Mexico representative Erika Benitez. Cheered on by the vocal crowd, Erika took off the line like a rocket and managed to sit in second place right behind Candice for much of the first lap. Eventually Erika tired and finished 9th, but that’s understandable when you consider she’s only 14 years old. Look for this name to regularly podium in the coming years.

With the event finally, Team USA streaks ahead on the Team Champions Leaderboard to claim the teams trophy, Australia settles for an unfamiliar team silver, Hawaii with the team bronze and New Zealand with the 4th placed team copper medal.

The 2015 ISA Worlds has also had a big impact on the SUP Racer World Rankings, with many national team representatives jumping well up the leaderboard.

Terrene Black moves up to world #7 after her two podium efforts, while Penelope Strickland and Rachel Bruntsch also moved to the pointy end of the Women’s Top 50 Leaderboard.

With his silver medal performance, Mo Freitas drastically improved his overall points tally, moving to 136.75 and overtaking Georges Cronsteadt in the process.

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In a cruel twist, Casper Steinfath actually drops two places despite his strong podium finish on Sunday. Casper’s drop looks like an anomaly, perhaps even an error in the rankings, however it’s actually quite simple: Casper was holding onto a big bag of points from his win in this event last year. Races are only kept in the rankings system for 12 months, so everybody who competed at the 2014 Worlds replaced their result this weekend. The level of competition has risen at the 2015 Worlds, meaning there were more points on offer in Mexico than Nicaragua, however Casper still needed to finish third just to tread water. He finished fourth, by a split second, and now he slides to world #10.

Casper’s points tally only dropped by 4.25 points, but the battle for the Top 10 rankings is so tight that even just a few points was enough to drop two spots. Taking advantage of the Viking’s fall are Beau O’Brian and Eric Terrien. Ironically Beau had an absolute shocker in this race, finishing 19th, while Eric didn’t even race. So neither of those guys gained any points, but with Casper’s slight fall it was enough to see them get a free ride up one spot.

Titou’s bronze medal saw him move past his Starboard team mate Zane Schweitzer by the narrowest of margins. Titou is now on 98.48 points, while Zane sits on 98.00. In fact you could throw a blanket over all the guys ranked #8 through #12, with just 6.50 points separating Beau, Eric, Casper, Titou and Zane.

Other big movers today were Niuhiti Buillard, who finally fills his minimum “five best results” and moves up to #32 as a result. Another big gain came from Canada’s Tamas “Tommy” Buday Jr, with the former Olympian removing a couple of donuts this week and jumping inside the top 75 in the world.

Hometown hero Bicho Jimenez, who jumped six places to world #13 after his massive performance in Wednesday’s long distance race, improved his points tally further with today’s finish, and will now be ready for an assault on the Top 10 when he heads to Europe next week.

View the full SUP Racer World Rankings

The 2015 ISA World Stand Up Paddle and Paddleboard Championship has been an amazing event. The location, here in beautiful Sayulita, Mexico, was absolutely perfect, while the atmosphere on the beach during the day and in the streets and restaurants by night was incredible. I really don’t want to leave this little slice of paradise on Tuesday.

The spirit of the event was summed up perfectly immediately following the final race. Team Mexico, who have been fantastic hosts this week, gave a short speech to the packed athletes tent, thanking everyone for coming and receiving a massive cheer that kickstarted about 12 straight hours of partying.

Yes, there were winners and there were losers this week, however more importantly: The spirit, energy and unity between the 27 assembled nations was inspiring. The ISA has done a great job to improve this event and I for one cannot wait for 2016. Let’s start guessing where it’ll be…

Awesome highlights reel of the final day thanks to Rogue SUP

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Team Champions Leaderboard

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Medal Table

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Team Relay Final (Sunday)

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Men’s SUP Course Race Final (Sunday)

Only the top 24 raced in the final
View the updated SUP Racer World Rankings

#	Name	Country	Time	ISA Points	SUP Racer Points
1	Connor Baxter	Hawaii	0:22:24	1000	35.50
2	Mo Freitas	Hawaii	0:22:27	860	26.63
3	Titouan Puyo	France	0:22:38	730	21.30
4	Casper Steinfath	Denmark	0:22:39	670	17.75
5	Vinnicius Martins	Brazil	0:22:40	610	15.09
6	Javier 'Bicho' Jimenez	Mexico	0:22:51	583	12.43
7	Slater Trout	USA	0:22:58	555	10.65
8	Arthur Daniel	France	0:23:22	528	8.88
9	Chuck Glynn	USA	0:23:29	500	7.99
10	Toby Cracknell	Australia	0:23:31	488	7.10
11	Felipe Rodrigues	Mexico	0:23:35	475	6.39
12	Arthur Santacreu	Brazil	0:23:45	462	5.68
13	Lorenzo 'Enzo' Bennett	Tahiti	0:23:46	450	5.33
14	Armie Armstrong	New Zealand	0:23:47	438	4.97
15	Niuhiti Buillard	Tahiti	0:24:06	425	4.62
16	Dylan Frick	South Africa	0:24:08	413	4.26
17	Ollie Houghton	New Zealand	0:24:09	400	3.91
18	Leonard Nika	Italy	0:24:14	395	3.55
19	Beau O'Brian	Australia	0:24:20	390	3.20
20	Tamas 'Tommy' Buday Jr	Canada	0:24:22	385	2.84
21	Ollie Shilston	Great Britain	0:24:33	380	2.66
22	Pepe Oltra	Spain	0:24:39	375	2.49
23	Kenichiro 'Kenny' Kaneko	Japan	0:24:40	370	2.31
24	Tamil Martino	Peru	0:24:43	365	2.13
25	Itzel Delgado	Peru		360	1.95
25	Quintin Chiapperino	Switzerland		360	1.95
27	Hakim Dridah	South Africa		350	1.74
27	Wade Keet	Argentina		350	1.74
29	Sebastian Barbero	Argentina		340	1.53
29	Andy Joyce	Great Britain		340	1.53
31	Jurgi Zulaika	Spain		330	1.35
31	Martijn van Deth	Netherlands		330	1.35
33	Andreas Svensson	Sweden		320	1.21
33	Kiyomi Matsumoto	Japan		320	1.21
35	Bart de Zwart	Netherlands		310	1.07
35	Leonardo Toso	Italy		310	1.07
37	Matt Abbott	Canada		300	0.92
37	Keith McGuirk	Ireland		300	0.92
39	Rolando Herrera	Costa Rica		290	0.78
39	Mariano Rossini	Argentina		290	0.78
41	Christophe Conry	Chile		280	0.67
41	Jacob Westman	Sweden		280	0.67
43	Carlos Martins	Venezuela		270	0.60
43	Brian Talma	Barbados		270	0.60
45	David Mangan	Ireland		260	0.53
46	Claudio Puntarelli	Chile		DSQ	0.00

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Women’s SUP Course Race Final (Sunday)

Only the top 12 raced in the final
View the updated SUP Racer World Rankings

#	Name	Country	Time	ISA Points	SUP Racer Points
1	Candice Appleby	USA	0:24:56	1000	28.50
2	Terrene Black	AUS	0:25:25	860	21.38
3	Penelope Strickland	NZL	0:25:28	730	17.10
4	Lina Augaitis	CAN	0:25:35	670	14.25
5	Lena Ribeiro	BRA	0:26:15	610	12.11
6	Rachel Bruntsch	HAW	0:26:23	583	9.98
7	Celine Guesdon	FRA	0:26:28	555	8.55
8	Laura Quetglas	SPA	0:27:28	528	7.13
9	Erika Benitez	mex	0:27:46	500	6.41
10	Marie Buchanan	UK	0:28:00	488	5.70
11	Takayo Yokoyama	JPN	0:28:05	475	5.13
12	Hinarii Yiou	TAH	0:28:08	462	4.56
13	Tarryn Kyte	RSA		450	4.28
13	Juliana Gonzales	ARG		450	4.28
15	Maya Persson	SWE		425	3.71
15	Nicoline Rasmussen	DEN		425	3.71
17	Erika Barausse	ITA		400	3.14
17	Giannisa Vecco	PER		400	3.14

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Men’s SUP Distance Race (Wednesday)

View the updated SUP Racer World Rankings

Place	Name	Country	Time	ISA Points	SUP Racer Points
1	Danny Ching	USA	1:41:59	1000	43.00
2	Javier "Bicho" Jimenez	MEX	1:42:11	860	32.25
3	Connor Baxter	HAW	1:42:26	730	25.80
4	Zane Schweitzer	HAW	1:42:27	670	21.50
5	Casper Steinfath	DEN	1:42:28	610	18.28
6	Titouan Puyo	FRA	1:42:29	583	15.05
7	Georges Cronsteadt	TAH	1:42:30	555	12.90
8	Leonard Nika	ITA	1:42:33	528	10.75
9	Fernando Stalla	MEX	1:42:34	500	9.68
10	Slater Trout	USA	1:44:00	488	8.60
11	Toby Cracknell	AUS	1:44:20	475	7.74
12	Kenny Kaneko	JPN	1:44:40	462	6.88
13	Eric Terrien	FRA	1:45:06	450	6.45
14	Ethan Koopmans	RSA	1:45:29	438	6.02
15	Arthur Santacreu	BRA	1:45:42	425	5.59
16	Tamas Buday Jr	CAN	1:45:46	413	5.16
17	Beau O'Brian	AUS	1:46:53	400	4.73
18	Armie Armstrong	NZL	1:47:12	395	4.30
19	Itzel Delgado	PER	1:47:41	390	3.87
20	Eric Leou-on	TAH	1:47:43	385	3.44
21	Vinnicius Martins	BRA	1:48:00	380	3.23
22	Pepe Oltra	SPA	1:48:47	375	3.01
23	JP Tobin	NZL	1:49:13	370	2.80
24	Hakim Dridah	SWI	1:51:40	365	2.58
25	Ollie Shilston	UK	1:51:43	360	2.37
26	Joseph Cerdas	CRI	1:51:44	355	2.24
27	Jurgi Zulaika	SPA	1:52:51	350	2.11
28	Koichi Matsumoto	JPN	1:53:13	345	1.98
29	Quintin Chiapperino	VIR	1:53:33	340	1.85
30	Joshua Robertson	RSA	1:53:50	335	1.72
31	Matt Abbott	CAN	1:53:52	330	1.63
32	Leonardo Toso	ITA	1:54:05	325	1.55
33	Bart de Zwart	HOL	1:54:15	320	1.46
34	Andy Joyce	UK	1:54:30	315	1.38
35	Martijn van Deth	HOL	1:56:45	310	1.29
36	Andreas Svensson	SWE	1:57:30	305	1.20
37	Mariano Rossini	ARG	1:57:48	300	1.12
38	David Mangan	IRE	1:59:12	295	1.03
39	Lucas Correa	ARG	1:59:20	290	0.95
40	Christophe Conry	CHI	2:00:54	285	0.86
41	Keith McGuirk	IRE	2:01:38	280	0.82
42	Patrick Boyum	SWE	2:04:45	275	0.77
43	Carlos Martíns	VEN	2:05:32	270	0.73
44	Oswaldo Velez	PER	2:16:30	265	0.69

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Women’s SUP Distance Race (Tuesday)

View the updated SUP Racer World Rankings

#	Name	Time	Nation	ISA Points	SUP Racer Points
1	Candice Appleby	1:52:54	USA	1000	24.50
2	Lina Augaitis	1:54:29	Canada	860	18.38
3	Terrene Black	1:56:19	Australia	730	14.70
4	Céline Guesdon	1:56:27	France	670	12.25
5	Penelope Strickland	1:57:29	New Zealand	610	10.41
6	Lena Ribeiro	1:58:00	Brazil	583	8.58
7	Rachel Bruntsch	1:58:24	Hawaii	555	7.35
8	Laura Quetglas	2:01:21	Spain	528	6.13
9	Takayo Yokoyama	2:04:19	Japan	500	5.51
10	Marie Buchanan	2:07:27	UK	488	4.90
11	Mishka Steyn	2:08:04	South Africa	475	4.41
12	Juliana Gonzales	2:09:53	Argentina	462	3.92
13	Hinarii Yiou	2:10:33	Tahiti	450	3.68
14	Erika Barausse	2:13:50	Italy	438	3.43
15	Gianissa Vecco	2:15:21	Peru	425	3.19
16	Maya Persson	2:17:19	Sweden	413	2.94
17	Nicoline Rasmussen	2:17:50	Denmark	400	2.70
18	Alejandra Brito	2:20:03	Mexico	395	2.45
19	Edith García	2:22:46	Costa Rica	390	2.21

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Men’s Prone Course Race Final (Sunday)

Only the top 16 raced in the final

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Women’s Prone Course Race Final (Sunday)

No qualifying heats – straight up final

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Men’s Prone Distance Race (Wednesday)

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Women’s Prone Distance Race (Wednesday)

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Men’s SUP Surfing

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Women’s SUP Surfing

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