The GBSUP National Sprint Championships 2024 (Sunday 8th September) were a total success and in my opinion have placed themselves front and centre in terms of the most exhilarating and exciting racing format in our UK racing calendar!
Regardless of whether paddlers had competed in this event in past years or whether it was their first time sprint racing at Nottingham, everybody seemed to share a huge sense of excitement and camaraderie about the day.
GBSUP had again scored us the opportunity to have a SUP Sprint element within the much larger Paddle UK sprint competition weekend, and this added to the anticipation as we joined many different paddle clubs and their fabulous competitors on the purpose built Regatta Lake at Holme Pierrepont in Nottingham, the headquarters of Paddle UK.
A few of us arrived on the grey drizzly Saturday afternoon to get out onto the lake and watch some bucket starts, have a warmup paddle and familiarise ourselves with the setup, using the GBSUP tent as a focal point.
If you’ve not competed at this venue before it is most definitely worth doing a familiarisation paddle before your racing as there is plenty going on. It’s a busy and very impressive weekend of multiple heats and noisy cheerful competition, so it’s good to get your headspace tuned in.
We were back down there at 7am on Sunday morning for our turn at electronic starting bucket practice. As always, the starting box officials were really patient with us as we practiced getting the noses of our boards into the hydraulic buckets. These are known affectionately in East Anglia as the Yellow F**kit Buckets! Here’s one we knocked-up at Frangipani SUP for our crew to practise with the week before, (though it was a partial success to be honest, it kept sinking!)
There was very little wind during the practice session on race day and even less during competition later in the morning, and that certainly made things much easier. Without wind it’s reasonably straightforward, it gets very tricky with tail wind and cross wind – and as one of the officials said over the loudspeaker… “inertia underway is not your friend!”
Spread over the morning, two 200m “all ages together” heats for both men and women were followed by lunchtime finals, with electronic starting buckets and the electronic finishing system providing the accurate recording of times and results for everyone over 200m. It was so exciting waiting for the huge results screen to announce the placings and the timings, a few minutes after the end of each heat, once the officials had agreed the finish line placings and dealt with several photo finishes. In fact in our first heat, five of seven of us were separated only by a few one-hundredths of a second!
Such exciting racing all morning…head on over to P3TPhotography and GBSUP socials for all the racing images and videos.
It was also very exciting when they played the National Anthem over the loudspeakers when GBR paddle athletes made podiums in Paris; I think we all felt mighty proud…
Talking of podiums, all GBSUP competitors received a medal and special trophies were awarded to the first, second and third place finishers male and female. Huge congrats to them and all paddlers.
Chocolate oranges were handed to competitors who were spotted with a great “sprint face” as chosen by the GBSUP official photographer and drone pilot Amanda at @P3Tphotography.
There were many great sprint faces to choose from with Drakey and our very own Sarah getting the loot! And newcomer Sarah got a great PB too!
There is ample parking on the purpose built site, along with cafes and a large campsite very close by, as well as some basic bedroom accommodation in the main building, although you have to be quick off the mark to book the latter as it sells out very quickly. Unfortunately, there was a very heavy downpour of rain on Saturday night and the campsite got tricky for some of those in tents. I would also say that if your results really matter to you, or you’re trying to qualify for something, I wouldn’t stay on the campsite if you want to sleep well, as it has quite a party vibe and was pretty noisy!
Some very wet conditions and a very wet campsite! Even so, GBSUP Race Director Scott Warren and Rich Stacey-Chapman Events and Competition Manager Paddle UK delivered a superb event.
We’d like to say “thank you” to them and to everyone at GBSUP (all volunteers) who worked hard to make it the success it was. At Frangipani SUP we can’t wait for this event again in 2025…you MUST come, it really is an amazing experience and should be one for your bucket list, pardon the pun!
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