My personal interestshave more or less completely focussed on Hall 8a, the home of all those who enjoy SUP, foil, windsurfing or surfing. Last weekend, the two stand-up paddling competitions "Shorttrack Master" and "SUP Wave Master" were also held here.
At the Shorttrack Mastera completely new race format was presented this year. In the style of a pursuit race, in which two teams of three people each chase each other anti-clockwise around four buoys for a maximum of 10 minutes. If someone overtakes a participant from the opposing team, they are eliminated. The aim is to have as many riders as possible in the pool at the end of the race and, above all, more riders than the opposing team.
In the finalmy team, Team Fanatic, consisting of Paulina Herpel, Christian Anderson and myself, won the race. It wasn't easy against the extremely strong Starboard team, consisting of Fiona Wylde, Zane Scheizer and Carsten Kurmis.
The format has great potential and is a lot of fun!
The SUP Wave Masterwas also attended by international celebrities and was definitely the spectator magnet par excellence. Here, as is usual in a normal SUP surf contest, everyone started on their own. Men and women were separated.
I had the feeling that there was a growing interest in hardboards among the visitors.
The show was amazing. The women's winner was Fiona Wylde, closely followed by Paulina Herpel. In third place was Rosina Neuere, one of the world's best shortboarders (ed.: classic surfing without a paddle) on this wave. In the men's final, Zane Schweizer from Hawaii clearly took first place despite the very close differences. Shortly behind him was Christian Anderson in second place, followed by Carsten Kurmis and myself in 4th place. Personally, I'm super happy with how the weekend went.
The trendsof the various manufacturers almost all point in the same direction: foiling with a wing is on the rise and is sure to become one of the new trends, although the focus is still clearly on SUP. I had the feeling that there was an increasing interest in hardboards among the visitors. On closer inspection, trade fair offers of SUPs from €100 - €200 showed that these are no longer even "better air mattresses", but extremely inferior SUPs produced by no-name manufacturers whose durability and riding characteristics I don't even want to talk about. Here you can clearly see that the leading, well-known companies have very high standards when it comes to quality, environmentally friendly production, innovation and design.
I am pleased I am already looking forward to 2021 and hope that many manufacturers and athletes will still be represented there.
