National Sprint Regatta - SUPJUNKIE REPORTING

All photos by AE Photos
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Last weekend I travelled up to the National Water Sports Centre in Nottingham, home of Paddle UK, our National Governing Body. Once a year, stand up paddleboarders are invited to join in their National Sprint Regatta with all other paddlecraft, including C1, K1, OC1, doubles and many others. Para athletes were in attendance and age ranges were from U14 to Seniors. 

I was travelling up to compete in the GBSUP National Sprint Championship together with 10 other women and 9 men in the Elite class, 8 women and 4 men in the Open class and one Junior male. 

The Water Sports Centre is a fantastic purpose-built location with a 2000 metre regatta lake incorporating 9 lanes for the sprint competition. 

Paddleboarders get two shots at getting into the final over a 200 metre course. The infamous ‘bucket’ starts fill newcomers with dread but once you’ve used them a few times in practice, all is good, especially if the wind plays fair! Over the whole weekend, we had an usual healthy tail wind giving us all a little bit of help over what is surely, just a little bit too long of a slog to be a true ‘sprint’. This is part of the course set up though for the whole Regatta so cannot be changed but it’s an incredible test and makes for fabulous viewing regardless. 

ICF World Champion Anna Little was in attendance with her son James, so we expected to see some fast times from them both. 

In the first heats for the Elite, standout performances came from Anna, Jen Ng-Armstrong and Dawid Kuleta and James. In the Open class it was Paul Doe, John Parker, Michaela Afford and Holly Grist who came in quickest, but we are talking by hundredths of seconds here. 

All times were marginally slower in the second heats due to the drop in wind and we had strong paddling from Julia Kuleta and Sarah Perkins in the Elite and Amy Fuller in the Open. A surprise showing in the Open from a young C1 paddler, Bella Keane, who wanted to join in the fun having watched from the sidelines – Bella knocked a couple of seconds off everyone’s time and was through to the final! 

So, onto the finals, where I was able to watch and film due to not qualifying – in the Open men we had a change around at the top with John Parker narrowly squeaking out Paul Doe with Robert Cummings coming in third. For the ladies, young Bella Keane transferred her one-sided C1 paddling over brilliantly to SUP to claim first, with Michaela Afford and Amy Fuller in second and third. With her time, Bella would have come third in the Elite, so we look forward to seeing this talented, young athlete do well in C1 or hopefully, SUP! 

In the Elite men we had more cracking times, with Dawid Kuleta and James Little coming in 1^st and 2^nd under a minute and Joe Jones third. Because this is the British National Sprint Champs, Dawid could not take the title but received a well-deserved medal for being the fastest on the course. This meant that James Little became the British champion with Joe second and Scott Warren in third. 

For the ladies, it was indeed Anna Little who came first, very closely followed by Jen Ng-Armstrong. Right up until the last few metres, it looked as though Gemma Palmer-Deighton had third, but it was snatched away from her by Sara Maxey. 

Congratulations to all the paddlers on a great showing of skill and speed. Hopefully all the Open paddlers will transfer up to the Elite next year and we will have a new group in the Open classes.  We would love to see more paddlers attending this event, but appreciate it is a long way to drive for two rounds of 200m, but if you are lucky and strong enough, you get three! 

Special mention to young Alexander Radoicovici who, due to lack of Juniors, had to paddle on his own with the Open men. He paddled hard and strong in all three rounds and was well deserving of his medal.  

I certainly enjoyed being on the other side of the camera and back on the race train, seeing my old SUP buddies – I would always encourage you all to have a go at racing – you never know, you may fall in love with it and be on that sprint start line next time. 

We will be back next week to showcase some of our highlights of 2025 – Happy Paddling!