2017 and beyond
As surfing becomes part of the Olympic movement what of the future of SUP? The ISA are quite open about including the sport as part of their Olympic portfolio by 2024. ISA president, Fernando Aguerre: “I have no doubt that a sport with so much passion and popularity globally will soon be a part of the Olympic movement”. And who would doubt him, he got surfing in! And where next? Denmark has some big shoes to fill however, I doubt logistics will be quite as intricate as they have been for the present World Champs. For the Europeans at least. As for 2018 Hawaii may well be a front runner with the need to keep the sport high profile.
And what of the Brits? Finishing 12th overall with essentially no prone paddlers (despite a team have been selected) is quite an achievement and matches the previous campaign. But, if the sport is to develop to match pace with international developments then a more extensive, coherent and progressive approach is required from grass roots upwards. A sobering thought is that if SUP does become part of the Olympics by 2024 the athletes from the UK who will attend are currently ten to twelve years old! In the short term simply including quality prone paddlers will very likely sneak GB (Team England in 2017) into the top ten. There is no reason why the UK cannot follow suit with French and Danish it is simply a matter of strategic planning and role models. The female sport has the potential to be very strong with the likes of Tina Beresford (11th surfing) and Marie Buchanan (9th and 10th distance and technical respectively) providing fantastic role models.
