06/02/2012 (FR) Massilia SUP Race Day1: Beach Race

 On the weekend after the SUP Race Cup St. Maxime, the Massilia SUP Race with 5000 EUR prize money was on at Page du Petit Roucas. Race director was Yannick Pinaud, who was also the organizer of St. Maxime. As always, he and his crew did an amazing job.

The 2 races were only about 100km apart, so many riders living further away like Eric Terrien (Canaries), Belar Diaz (Spain) and Gaetan Sene (Brittany) had stayed in the South of France after St. Maxime. Others like Caspar Steinfath (Denmark) and Fabrizio Gasbarro (Italy) had flown back into France. The risk of that is loosing baggage and that’s what happened to Fabrizio. Everything arrived except for the most important piece of luggage: his paddle. Caspar on the other hand seemed to have found the secret formula of beating Gaetan, that consisted of getting up at 3 AM to catch a 6AM flight with a one hour power nap, but more on that later…

The riders arrived around lunch time, and there was quite a bit of wind, about 30km/h. The area where the beach race took place was however quite a protected bay, so despite the strong wind, the waves were only moderate.

The beach race started in the left corner of the bay which was most protected, it was a start where the riders were on their knees on the boards holding on to a security line, quite an interesting picture. There was no countdown, only a “go” once everyone had arrived in the starting position.

First came a sprint out into the ocean, then a zig-zag course around 5 bouys with wind coming from different sides, then a nice downwind back into the beach and a lap of running through the sand. The course was 2.1 or 2.2km and had to be paddled 4 times.

Eric Terrien continued his winning streak and again came in first, he also very much liked the windy conditions (being used to training in strong wind on the Canaries). Caspar Steinfath came in 28 seconds later, for the first time beating Gaetan Sene, who finished 3rd. Next was Gregory Closier.

There was a very close fight for place 5 between the Fanatic Team mates Fabrizio Gasbarro and Didier Leniel, Fabrizio passed him in an amazing finish sprint and came in 2 seconds before Didier. Of note was also the performance of Jungster Arthur Daniel who finished 9th.

Men’s Top 10

For the women’s St. Maxime winner Olivia Piana (Fanatic) finished 1st before Sophie Routaboul and Celine Guesdon.

Tomorrow the beach race is on, the race will start about 9:30!