TravelSIM Team Australia Continues To Fire At ISA SUP And Paddleboard Championship

TravelSIM Team Australia Continues To Fire At ISA SUP And Paddleboard Championship
TravelSIM Team Australia’s ocean skills shonethrough on Day 4 of the ISA World SUP and Paddleboard Championship in Peru.
With the waves in Miraflores, Peru increasing overnight and both SUP surfing and SUP racing on the schedule, competitors had mixed feelings about the conditions. The surfers were stoked with the bigger waves, while some of the racers, especially those from non-surfing nations, were definitely getting nervous.For the Australians however, this was business as usual. The squad trains in the surf almost daily and that experience shone through in the men’s Technical Course qualifying heats. Kelly Margetts and Jamie Mitchell, both locals of Currumbin, QLD, are safely through to the main event on Sunday where they will race off against 22 international competitors for a shot at gold.
“Just happy to survive the carnage and make it through to Saturday’s final without any issues,” said Mitchell, who is already a gold medal winner at this event after Tuesday’s Distance Race. “The final is calling for smaller waves, so it’ll be a whole new type of race and definitely a lot tougher than today.”
The Gold Coast duo both comfortably finished in the top three of their heats and will likely start favourites in Saturday’s final. However there are several dark horses at this event, and given how quickly a SUP race in-and-out through the waves can change, a tense finish is promised.
In this morning’s SUP surfing event, Beau Nixon (Tweed Heads, NSW) continued his great form, breezing through his heat with a score of 12.97 to set up a stacked semi-final showdown. Nixon will face off against last year’s gold medal winner Antoine Delpero of France and young gun Sean Poynter of the USA for a spot in the medal final.
Meanwhile Justin Holland (Kingscliff, NSW) lost his morning heat but survived the repechage round with a great display of sudden-death surfing. The silver medallist from 12 months ago posted one of the highest heat scores of the day (13.5) and is still a solid chance to make it back up into the main final on Saturday.
TravelSIM Team Australia is currently leading the overall team points table with just two days remaining. However there is still plenty of room for other nations to catch up, with the likes of Mexico and South Africa not far behind and plenty of events still to come. Tomorrow will see more medals awarded with the men’s and women’s Prone Paddleboarding Technical Course Race, while Sunday is the big finale with five golds up for grabs.

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