The APP have confirmed the first two stops on their elite-only super tour have been cancelled, with the 2020 series now condensed into three events spanning six weeks from late October through early December in Japan, Spain and Paris.

The two cancellations (sounds like they’re straight up gone for this year as opposed to a postponement) were the race in France at the end of June and the Maui event in July.

The APP was piggybacking on an existing event in France at the end of June, the Pornichet Paddle Trophy, but that’s been put on hold along with virtually the entire European summer. The other race we’ve lost is the new one on Maui that was going to be an APP original event. There were interesting plans for a double- or even triple-downwinder along the Maliko run during July when a lot of the world’s top ocean paddlers were expected to be in Hawaii for Molokai prep.

But with much of the world moving towards total lockdown, pretty much every event in the next three months has been either cancelled, postponed, or is bravely crossing its fingers before announcing what is seemingly inevitable.

With three APP events from September-December plus the Carolina Cup (moved to early November), a rescheduled Air France Paddle Festival in Tahiti (likely August/Sept), the big Aloha Spirit event in Brazil (November), plus events that were already lined up for later in the year such as the 11 Cities in September and King of the Cut in late November, and we could be in for a very busy end to the year.

The remaining APP events are as follows…

1. Osaka SUP Open, Japan: 25th – 27th September
2. Gran Canaria Pro-Am, Spain: 27th – 29th November
3. Paris SUP Open, France: 4th – 6th December

Follow SUP Racer’s full coverage of the coronavirus impact on stand up paddle races