2014 Review: Surfski World Series

Ocean racing paddling remains one of the fastest growth areas in global paddle sports, and with the 2013 ICF Ocean Racing World Championship adding further impetus to the discipline’s profile, and Tahiti teed up to host the second ICF World Championship in 2015, 2014 was a year that saw some remarkable surfski performances. Under the umbrella of the Surfski World Tour, which embraced fourteen events around the globe in a calendar year, the elite ocean racers were able to test themselves against the best surfski specialists in a wide variety of locations and in vastly different ocean conditions. The 2014 series included twelve races, in Australia, Guadeloupe, Hawaii, Mauritius, Greece, USA, Tahiti, France, South Africa and Hong Kong. The 2013 ICF Ocean Racing World Champion, Sean Rice , won in San Fransisco and the fabled Hong Kong Dragon run, while Australian superstar Clint Robinson dominated in tough conditions in Tahiti. Multiple ICF World Canoe Marathon Champion, Hank McGregor , won a thrilling edition of the Molokai Challenge from Australians Clint Robinson and Corey Hill. But the year belonged to Jasper Mocké, the younger brother of four times Surfski World Series winner Dawid Mocké, who had set the year aside to travel to as many of the Surfski World Series events as possible. He came away with wins in seven of the ten events in which he took part, and wrapped it up by winning his hometown event in Cape Town, after emerging victorious in the Mandurrah Duel and Perth Doctor in Australia, the Defis Kayak in the Caribbean, the Mauritius Ocean Classic, the Aegean Cup in Greece and the Breizh Ocean Race in France. “It was a very tough year, because it was impossible to prioritise any one of the surfski races to peak for,” recalls Jasper. “That meant that I went into a lot of these races at about 85% and had to dig really deep to compete with the classy paddlers I was coming up against at all of these events.” “As the sport’s pinnacle events, the races that make...

[go to the magazine: canoeicf]

Continue with the original post:
https://www.canoeicf.com/news/2014-review-surfski-world-series