In brief: Martin Letourneur and Olivia Piana have taken out the 2017 GlaGla Race in the French Alps, with a massive 345 competitors descending upon a cold but sunny Lake Annecy in what was an amazing celebration of the sport.

After 13km of flat and sometimes foggy paddling, Martin edged out world number 13 Leo Nika by the narrowest of margins, winning a photo finish with an official margin of 0.6 seconds.

As the sun poked through to setup a beautiful afternoon, Olivia crossed the line 10 minutes later to make it a double victory for the host nation, with the Frenchwoman in a league of her own that saw her finish top 20 on the men’s leaderboard.

Promising French kayaker Matthieu Chauvel and unheralded Slovenian Jost Zakrajsek (who has a whitewater canoe background) were both very impressive in sticking with Martin and Leo all the way to the end, while Swiss-turned-Aussie Nico Schenk paddled strong to round out the top five.

After losing by mere centimetres in the morning, Leo had some revenge on Martin in the afternoon, with Starboard rider from Italy taking out the 5km ‘Beach Race’ event by a similar margin.

But the real story of the event was the sheer number of participants who braved the below-freezing temperatures for the first big race of the year. The air temp was -4 when the distance race started, while the water temp would have been hovering around +4 or +5. Most of us couldn’t feel our toes, but everyone I spoke to said it was an amazing race to be part of.

Watching 345 paddlers charge off the start line must have been an incredible sight — stay tuned for some awesome drone footage on SUP Racer’s Facebook and Instagram later tonight and tomorrow.

This is the kind of race that reminds you why our sport is so much fun.

Huge thanks to Benoit from the Alpine Lakes Tour for creating this crazy but amazing race in an epic location. It was an absolutely freezing day on the water, but I’m already looking forward to next year’s event.

Thanks also to Red Paddle Co for hooking me up with an elite inflatable to race on (I’ll have a review of their new 2017 boards later this week). Speaking of Red, we also got to witness the epic ‘Red Dragon’ four-person inflatable race–keep an eye out for some awesome drone footage of that one as well.

Check back after the weekend for a full recap of the race, full results full results below, photo gallery and more video of this amazing race. In the meantime, follow SUP Racer on Facebook and Insta for more insights.

UPDATE: Here’s the epic drone footage // scroll down for full results

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https://www.instagram.com/p/BPhrpQsl6uL/

 

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2017 GlaGla Race

 

2017 GlaGla Race – 5km results

coming soon

 

2017 GlaGla Beach Race

 

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