After a succesful weekend of racing in Ste-Maxime 10 days ago, several members of the Hobie® SUP racing team drove up to Germany to compete at the fourth stop of the EURO TOUR : the Lost Mills SUP Race in Brombachsee, Germany. Every year, this is the number one event in Europe so April Zilg, Lexi Alston and I couldn’t miss the opportunity to race against a majority of the world’s best.
On our way to Lost Mills we stopped in Lugano, on the Italian part of Switzerland, to see its famous lake in front of breathtaking landscapes with the city and the mountains. Fortunately, we had some Hobie inflatable SUP boards in the car so we were able to paddle on it to get the best view.
“Lugano was very exciting to see and I had a great experience paddling and taking time to tour the city. I also got to do a little shopping for myself and my family. I was so happy to see all of the sites and I hope to go back there next year,” said Lexi Alston.
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On Friday, for the first day of the event we had the “Fastest Paddler on Earth” 200 meters Time Trials on Brombachsee Lake. After a hard first round in which every paddler had to sprint their best to qualify for the final round, they took the top 11 womens’ time and top 25 mens’ time to go to the final round.
Lexi had a good run on her Hobie 14’ Apex but missed the qualification by a few seconds and ended up at 15th place.
Nevertheless, April Zilg seemed very strong on her new Hobie 14’ x 23” Apex and secured a spot in the final round to claim an impressive 6th place finish at this “Fastest Women Paddler on Earth challenge” with a time of 01:13 minutes.
For my part, I raced the same Hobie 14’ Apex as in Ste Maxime and after getting into the final round, I had a good run, finishing the 200 meters sprint in a time of 00:55:77 minute to end up 13th over a very strong field of world class paddlers.
Saturday was the famous Distance Race of the event. On this 12.5-mile race, April and I were racing on our Hobie 14’ Apex while Lexi was using the 14’ Apex 4R.
April had a very good race leading her group during the whole time to finish with a strong 4th place in what was the second biggest race of the year according to the women’s field. She especially showed some skills and strength on the beach run part of the race between every lap. She was happy with her strong finish.
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“I’m having a great time traveling in Europe; seeing and paddling new places. It is great to paddle against a whole new set of competition! I’m really happy with all of my training this year, and this past weekend I was able to close a big gap after the first four miles and paddle in a train with 2nd and 3rd place for a while before having some buoy bumping with other racers which caused me to lose the train. I was happy with the 4th place finish that I worked for. The 14’ x 23” Hobie Apex board was perfect in the conditions at Brombachsee. I’m so happy that it arrived unscathed and race-ready! Now off to Bilbao… I’ll miss the beer and the brats in Germany!” April said.
Lexi ended up with a very encouraging 13th place while being the youngest woman competitor and learned once again a lot for the next race.
On the men’s side, the field was more stacked than ever this year and the pace was really high. I had a good start and was able to be in the front pack during the whole race. After the top four guys broke away from our group, we all battled very hard into a sprint to the end that made me finish at the 11th place. I’m very happy with this result and looking forward to try to improve it next weekend in Bilbao, to hopefully crack the top 10 again.
