At the end of 5 weekends of back-to-back racing for many of the world’s best SUP racers, the spring season’s leaders Mariecarmen Rivera (Puerto Rico) and Shuri “Shrimpy” Araki (Japan) solidified their statuses as #1 with golds in the Barcelona World SUP Fest long distance race.

The BCN World SUP Fest was event #4 of 7 and the highest “starred” race for Euro Tour 2025, where racers now have a break until the Nordhausen SUP Race in Germany on 21st June. Mariecarmen and Shrimpy managed to extend their leads in the Euro Tour rankings by earning 60 points for their wins in Barcelona.

The surprise of Barcelona

The surprise of the weekend was in the women’s long distance race. Fans anticipated a tight race between Mariecarmen and Esperanza Barreras at the front, where Espe would make her signature move at the end and Mariecarmen would fight the whole way to try and keep her off, but it turned out to be an entirely different battle for the multiple distance world champion Espe.

Espe got off to “a super bad start” and her race transformed from a fight for gold into a battle to see how much ground she could make up over 12 kilometres, starting from 30 metres behind the last racer. Being the champion she is, Espe simply put her head down and worked her way through almost the entire field to finish 4th. It was the comeback of the year. As frustrated as Espe must have felt to be fighting from the back instead of the front, imagine having had a perfect race at full effort only to be smoothly passed mid-race by Espe slipping by you, her eyes on the front group. It was a brilliant performance for Espe, and perhaps if the race had been another 5-10 kilometres longer, she could have snuck onto that podium…

Mariecarmen takes another win, but with tough challenges from Alba and Duna

As impressive as Espe’s comeback was, it was Mariecarmen who shone brightest when she earne her sixth gold in five weekends. At virtually every race, Mariecarmen has been starting strong, taking an early lead, and holding off her competitors to the end. Her competitors haven’t made it easy to hold the lead though, and Duna Gordillo and Alba Frey were hot on her heels again in Barcelona.

As the front group of Mariecarmen, Alba, and Duna broke away from the crowd, Alba held second position next to Mariecarmen for the first lap. Duna, determined as ever to fight for the win, stuck on the wash train like glue. At the end of the first lap, the three paddlers rode small bumps into the sand for a beach turn: they had to hop off their boards, run with the board around a giant marker just a few feet up the beach, and quickly hop back on in the surf. It’s a tricky maneuver to get right when you’re fresh, and these racers had already worked hard for 6 km.

Mariecarmen executed a perfect beach turn with a re-entry into the surf that was as smooth as butter. It was picture perfect. She took up the lead immediately. Alba came in second, ran round the marker easily, but had just the smallest fumble getting hit by incoming waves in the surf and lost precious seconds as Mariecarmen sped off in front of her. Duna, seeing her chance, copied Mariecarmen’s smooth entry and put the hammer down to catch her. After a quick recovery, Alba was back on the water again but down a position.

On the second and final lap of the race, Alba took a couple different lines to try and catch back up. The first one paid off, and she merged back into a threesome with Mariecarmen and Duna but still in third position. As they reached the final buoy turn and 600 metre sprint to the finish, Alba went wide. It may have looked risky, but she had 3rd position well locked up at this point with Espe still a ways behind her, and if the line paid off… With her skill in the surf, she knew that if she could catch bumps that Mariecarmen and Duna weren’t getting, she could take 1st or 2nd.

This time, the divergence didn’t help. Alba lost perhaps a few seconds on the wider line but kept her 3rd place, and Espe rolled in behind in 4th having overtaken the entire field.

The three Spaniards and Mariecarmen often train together, so they’ll know each others’ strengths and strategies by heart, but it seems to only make the racing more exciting. Wherever Mariecarmen, Espe, Alba, and Duna battle over long distance next is sure to be tighter than ever.

Shrimpy keeps his crown, and stays ahead of the dogfight just behind him

In the men’s race, Shrimpy continued his dominant run to take his seventh gold in five weekends (yes, he’s outdone Mariecarmen by one since he doesn’t seem to have his own Espe to challenge him). In a repeat of his last few races, Shrimpy took an early lead and held it throughout. It’s difficult to say how hard he’s having to work to maintain this clear lead so consistently – if the pack was closer behind, could he have finished with an even more dominant win? That will be the question leading into world championship events later this year. But for now, Shrimpy and team are headed back to Japan after their European spring, so at least some other athletes will have a chance to win a few races in Europe until he’s back again.

Just behind Shrimpy though was a dogfight between a huge pack eager for the podium, ranking points, and Top 5 prize money. In his SUP Salivoli blog, author and racer Paolo Marconi said: “a train of about fifteen athletes stayed close together until the unstoppable Shuri Araki made the decisive move.” As the race went on, Michael “Boothy” Booth described being in the middle of a dozen paddlers chasing Shrimpy, saying: “no one really could get away”. In the end, the close group of Antonio Morillo, Arthur Arutkin, and Aaron Sanchez finally managed to break away and take 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. Moments later, the New Caledonian paddler Titouan Puyo claimed 5th.

Having been away from the elite SUP racing scene for a little while, Titou said he was “a little bit surprised to be honest” about his result, but “pretty happy.” Titou is a decorated paddler in outrigger canoeing as well as SUP, and has said he naturally spends more time in outrigger – it only seems to be helping him, based on his performance in Barcelona. Keep your eye on Titou this year, he’s shown you can never count him out.

Lake Rocks Festival in Austria: race preview

While the Euro Tour and the European SUP League are on break, the ICF SUP World Ranking Series continues this weekend with the Lake Rocks Festival in Austria. Lake Rocks will be the final ICF ranking event until the ICF World Championships in Abu Dhabi at the end of October.

Top contenders in the women’s race

Although several top names from the last few weeks of racing are not signed up to race in Austria, there should still be some exciting action on the water. Esperanza Barreras is racing, and after her bad luck in Barcelona she’s sure to get off to a perfect start in the long distance event at Lake Rocks.

Her biggest competitor might be Csillag Kocsis, the junior world champion from Hungary. After double silver medals in Greece a few weeks ago, Kocsis was missing from the races in Spain, possibly related to illness she suffered during her time in Greece. Kocsis is registered to race in Austria, but hasn’t publicly confirmed if she’s there. Hopefully she’s back in fine form and ready to challenge Espe.

Top contenders in the men’s race

In the men’s race, it looks like it’ll be an exciting rematch between Donato Freens (Netherlands) and Michael “Boothy” Booth (Australia) who finished 1st and 2nd respectively at Lake Rocks 2024. Possible front-packers could also include Filippo Mercuriali (Italy) who finished 5th in 2024 but may need to step up his speed to challenge Donato and Boothy.

The young gun Donato has had an exceptional season so far with five technical & distance medals in five weekends of racing, tied with Alba Frey and Duna Gordillo. Michael Booth has had a slightly rocky start to his European racing season: he flew out from Australia to start racing a bit later than many of his Europe-based competitors, and said of his 13th place finish in the long distance race in Barcelona that he was “Disappointed with the result, but happy with how I paddled.”

Top contenders in the men’s race

The age category racing could have just as exciting racing as the open category at Lake Rocks, where Joep van Bakel from the Netherlands (7th in 2024) is probably the favourite but will have to face tough competition from Germans Manuel Lauble (10th in 2024) and 40+/50+ world champion Peter Weidert (15th in 2024). Hungarian Gabor Szabó is racing as well, he finished 19th at Lake Rocks 2024 but took the bronze medal in 50+ long distance racing at the ICF World Championships in Sarasota last year, so could be on track for a faster finish this year.

A deep entry list, but shallow competition?

While the entry numbers for this year’s Lake Rocks Festival are high (551 listed entries, including multiple race entries from single athletes), the level of competition is looking significantly lower compared to 2024 and compared to the last 5 weekends of racing in Spain and Greece.

In the women’s field, none of last year’s Top 5 other than Espe have returned to race again. Juliette Duhaime (Argentina), Cecilia Pampinella (Italy), Tarryn King (South Africa), and Susak Molinero (Spain) are all missing from the start list as is Claudia Postiglione (Italy) who finished 8th.

Réka Slekta of Hungary is signed up to race this year, and after finishing ten seconds behind her compatriot Csillag last year, she could offer some competition for the podium. Kyriaki “Rea” Logotheti, the young racer from Greece, is also competing and could have a shot at the podium. If Csillag or the other two paddlers can challenge Espe, it should be a great race up at the front, otherwise Espe’s distance race might consist of just seeing how much of the men’s field she can overtake.

The attrition on the men’s side looks nearly as bad. 5 of last year’s Top 10 have returned, but the list of notable names from 2024 who are missing from 2025 is long: Andrey Kraytor (Hungary), Cameron Tripney (South Africa), Vaïc Garioud (France), Blue Ewer (Great Britain), Bodie Von Allmen (USA), Paolo Marconi (Italy)…

New racers this year Phaedon Doukas, 9x Greek SUP Sprint Champion, and the multi-disciplinary athlete Normen Weber of Germany are great additions to the racing and potential top contenders behind Donato and Boothy. But the depth of field this year still feels notably shallower.

Perhaps even the Europe-based athletes decided a flight to Austria (or nearby Slovenia or Italy) after five weekends of back-to-back races was one flight too far. No doubt the names who are missing will be enjoying some well-earned rest and routine before the next round of racing.