JEVER SUP World Cup

Posted Sep 15, 2010 in Blog

I was just in Hamburg, Germany for the Jever Cup SUP World Cup.  It was very interesting to see what the European SUP scene was like. It was an amazing event that was well organized, professionally run, competitive and really fun. Athletes from all over the world came to compete.

There were about 30 invited pros, some of them being paddlers that had qualified in  European events to compete in the pro division along with an amateur division and open class.  There were races going all day long. At the opening ceremony on Friday we met the press and there was a fun relay. Our two Naish teams took first and second! We got our boards all ready for the next days races and checked out the course.

The event took place in a canal in one of their main shipping areas which you cant paddle in usually. It was a great venue for spectators to watch from all sides of the canal, as well as from footbridges.  The spectators were amazing! There were thousands and thousands SUP fans cheering for us racing!

One of the things that I liked the most about the event was the Naish tent.  The Naish Importer Bossi and the rest of his team did an amazing job of taking care of us and making sure we had what we needed.  They had a lot of us from the International Team there and although I knew their names and faces, I hadn’t met them all personally.  At the event we had Jenny Kalmbach (Big Island), Jerry Bess (Big Island), Paul (Jacko) Jackson (Australia), Sonnie Hoenscheid  (Canary Islands), Stephanne Etienne and Nicole Boronat(Canary Islands),  Brian (Action Man) Talma (Barbados), Robby Naish, and myself.  It really felt like we were a team.  Even though we were all competing against each other we were also helping each other out, cheering each other on and hanging out.  It was great to have Robby around and it was amazing to see how much they love and appreciate him in Germany.  He was signing autographs, posing for pictures and giving interviews all day long.

Most of us were staying at the same hotel called The Arcotel and our driver Perry was awesome.  He made sure we made it to the event on time every day and back to the hotel when the racing was over.  After a long day down at the event site we would meet up in the Spa at the hotel.  The spa became quite funny to all of  us from the U.S., Australia and England.  We are used to wearing our suits in a co-ed spa and there… they are not.  In fact, we found out later that the rules of the Spa were not to wear clothes, so apparently we were breaking the rules and being rude.  It became a big topic of conversation every night at dinner after we had been to the spa.  A lot of laughing about various things.

Saturday was the first official day of racing and it was the qualifying heats of sprint racing.  The sprint was 1000m.  The start was in the center and it was a sprint down around a buoy and then to the other end around another buoy, finishing back in the middle.  The buoy turns were very chaotic with collisions, people falling in and sometimes just bad luck when wrecks happened.  That day was also the amateur distance race.  The event went from 9 to about 630 pm.  The weather was rainy, windy and cold, there were a few sun breaks, but mostly cloudy.

Sunday was the day of all the finals.  We had the finals for the Sprint race and then 1 hour later the distance race.   The sprint race was a bit frustrating for me.  I started out really strong and Jenny Kalmbach and I were to the first buoy at the same time.  Jenny fell around the buoy and I had to go around her, but she was back up really fast.  The two of us were sprinting it out to the second buoy and we were neck and neck and had a great lead on the girls behind us.   Jenny got the inside turn and I got knocked a bit to the right by the back of her board.  She made it around and as I was trying to get back on track two girls got on the inside around the buoy knocking me completely to the outside!  By the time I got turned around I was having to work my way back up to second and third.  I almost caught them in the end, it was literally by about a foot.  I ended up fourth.  Which was just bad luck.

I was excited for the distance race to have another chance to podium.  The distance race  was 10,000 meters which was 10 laps around an island that was a huge floating dock.  It was great for the spectators because they could see the whole race.  The water was pretty choppy because there were a lot of us in the race, men and women.  The water would rebound off the walls of the canal and we had to duck under a couple bridges each lap.  They started the men two minutes before us to spread us out a bit.  I was amazed how quickly we caught up to the pack of guys and eventually even lapped some of the men.   Passing became difficult in the backside of the canal which was pretty narrow.  I led for the first four laps and was drafted by Jenny Kalmbach and a girl from New Zealand.  I wasn’t used to being drafted because we don’t really draft in races in the U.S.  Jenny eventually sprinted out to get the lead so she wasn’t getting bumped by the girl from behind and I tried to follow but was stuck in some side chop and couldn’t get a quick sprint.  So, now I was stuck with the girl behind bumping and actually ramming me at every corner.  She eventually got a yellow card but that was just a warning.  She finally got a good inside turn ducking under a  really low section of the bridge and I got stuck behind some men at the turn.  I was happy to be free of the ramming, which was knocking me down on my seat but now needed to play catch up.  I ended up third which was great and I was happy to be on the podium. At the end of the race they handed us  a Jever Fun beer, which was non-alcoholic, but it tasted good.  The award ceremony happened really quickly after the distance race and we were amazed how many spectators were there to watch.  We received flowers, trophies and money, and got a spray down of Jever beer.  It was fun!  Naish ended up doing very well at the event.   In the distance race for Men and Women we took 4 out of the 6 podium spots.

We ended the day with a trip to the spa which always included a good laugh.  Robby took the Naish team out for a great dinner.  It was a perfect way to end the event all together celebrating and hanging out.  I definitely look forward to returning to the event next year.