In the northern hemisphere, spring is starting to turn into summer, and the racing is really heating up now! Billy and Betsy start with a SUP racing recap from the World SUP Festival Costa Blanca in Santa Pola last weekend.

Shuri “Shrimpy” Araki from Japan smashed through an incredibly strong men’s field yet again to win both the distance and technical races. After dominating early races where some of her biggest rivals from Spain were missing, Mariecarmen Rivera of Puerto Rico finally faced them all in Santa Pola. The reigning long distance world champion Esperanza Barreras foiled Mariecarmen in the distance race yet again, continuing their close rivalry in 2025. But Mariecarmen came back stronger the next day to take an early lead in the technical race and out-paddle all three of her biggest Spanish rivals to take gold.

Last weekend also marked the official start of the new Olympic cycle for flat water sprint canoe and kayaking with World Cup #1 in Szeged. Some of your reigning Olympic champions from Paris 2024 are taking a break from international racing, while others showed up to test their mettle against some up-and-coming names. Billy and Betsy dive deep on why this world cup matters, and what kinds of goals the athletes and coaches are hoping to achieve at this stage.

In the descent world, the legendary Sella Descent race scheduled for August is getting closer by the day, and some Spanish paddlers are testing out the course already. Last weekend was also the Descenso del Piloña and Descenso del Alto Sella, two warm-up races for the big race later in the summer.

Finally, Billy and Betsy look at who might be racing Molokai in surfski this upcoming weekend…

00:21 SUP news, recapping the SUP World Festival Costa Blanca in Santa Pola, Spain; Shuri “Shrimpy” Araki dominates the men’s scene; Mariecarmen Rivera leads the women’s field in all

09:44 The first sprint canoe world cup of the season, recapping Szeged World Cup #1

15:06 Surprises in the women’s kayak racing: Aimee Fisher, Zsóka Csikós, Melina Andersson, Anna Pulawska, and Natalia Drobot

21:50 The men’s 1000m race, the most exciting race of the weekend. Exceptional racing from Hamish Lovemore, Balint Kopasz, Josef Dostal, Fernando Pimenta, and Thomas Green.

26:06 An upset in the men’s K4, and some photographic evidence of not-quite-perfect timing from an otherwise near-perfect crew

27:17 Men’s & women’s canoe surprises, including from Gabriele Casadei and Viktoriia Yarchevska

29:59 Previewing next weekend’s world cup in Poznan, Poland, and the first international paracanoe racing of the year

31:11 Recapping two Sella Descent warm-up races from last weekend

*UPDATE - having found the full race results after recording, the mixed crew winners were Natalia Garcia Menendez / Ivan Garcia de Quevedo; the women’s winner was Blanca Escandon del Valle in the K1 2000, and there didn’t appear to be women’s results for the K1 10000 or K2 10000 race35:32 Molokai surfski race preview

If you enjoyed the episode, please subscribe to Paddlecast and leave a review. If Paddlecast isn’t enough paddling chat for you, you can also follow:instagram.com/paddledailyhttps://paddledaily.comhttps://www.instagram.com/supracer https://supracer.comhttp://instagram.com/billylikeskayaking And here’s a few links we referenced in the show…SUP Racer write-up of the biggest six weeks in SUP ever: https://supracer.com/six-weeks-of-non-stop-racing-around-europe-is-almost-over-who-will-come-out-on-top Men’s K1 1000m Race at World Cup 1 in Szeged, the must-watch race of the weekend: https://www.facebook.com/planetcanoe/videos/1912182349631768Lisa Carrington, sprint kayak GOAT, purchases a women’s basketball team: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/basketball/dame-lisa-carrington-joins-kahu-basketball-ownership-group/BF2WJQADM5FXTNPSGXAP4YUK3Q/Descenso del Piloña, the dam of soto de dueñas: https://youtu.be/-3nGQ-ZmL0A? Descenso del Alto Sella Golondrosu Rapids: https://youtu.be/OfNwhOybpqE?si=wI-m9NNEky2e4OXB