Prone – ISA SUP and Paddleboard World Championships – Day 3 – Copenhagen, Denmark
September 2024
Day 3
After yesterdays’ disastrous training session I came in early this morning to get a couple of circuits in before the race this afternoon. Fortunately, whilst packing my board away yesterday, I had met the wonderful Dutch prone paddler Martijn Ronday. He very kindly offered to join me this morning while I familiarised myself with the course. What a STAR!
I thought I’d sussed most of it yesterday, but I soon discovered that my count and angle calculations were way out. Thanks to Martijn – his patience and guidance – 
everything started to come together.
He offered to help me during the race, but I told him that I thought the rules stated that there was no assistance allowed, either from the shore or on the water, and I worried that if he did help me, he may be penalised for this. So said “thanks, but no thanks”. This was my issue, and I’d have to work it out. Anyway, all of the work he’d done with me gave me a lot more confidence than I’d had when I woke up this morning.
Although I now had the course and stroke numbers in my head, I did have another concern. After hitting the SUPer yesterday, I was worried about getting in the way of my competitors. Normally at races, I tell everyone to shout at me if I’m getting too close, but I was worried that this may be seen as helping me, and again, I didn’t want anyone getting penalised for my mistakes.
I spoke to Allistair and Martin about this, and Martin took me to meet Anthony Vela, who gives the race briefings. Normally it is at these briefings that everyone is told to “watch out for the blind guy”. Although surprised to hear that there was a blind paddler in the race, he was cool with it all and brought it up in the pre-race briefing.
Before the racing started, Allistair and Alison took me over to the start line so I could check it out. At the start of the race, the command “front foot on the line” is given, and I didn’t know where this was. Not only did 
AA show me where it was, but as you can see from the pic, Molly showed me how to do it!
10 minutes before the race, the participants were called into the segregated paddleboard athlete zone. Team manager Ally brought my board in for me and found a place for me to wait.
Whilst there, Anthony Vela came over to me and told me that he’d checked the rules, and it seemed that the other racers could help me if they wanted. The rules stated that no “officials” on the water, or anyone else on the shore could assist.
I heard Martijn just in front of me and squatted down in the 
sand to give him the update. As I told him, several of the other racers joined us, and the support they showed me took my breath away. A real brotherhood. It still takes my breath away when I think of it now. Thanks guys.
I said thanks, but all I really wanted was for them to tell me if I got in their way.
One by one we were called to the start line. With the highest seeding paddlers going first and choosing their preferred position on the line.
“Front foot on the line”. Wait. “Racers ready”. Wait. Electronic fart, and we were off.
As I ran into the water, there were 17 other paddlers and boards spread out in front. My board hit the water, I dived on top of it, and I was off.
For the first minute or so, the sea around me was bubbling, with a mass of hands trying to find purchase on a clean bit of water. I could see a jumble of bodies in front of me, but couldn’t see their boards. The pace wasn’t fast, and although I wanted to go faster, I couldn’t see a way through everyone, so just held back.
By the time we reached the first turn, (buoy no.1), the field was already starting to spread out. It was almost a 180° turn to head back towards buoy no.2. There was more space now, so I picked up my pace. So did the paddlers in front of me, and several from behind as they overtook me, (they’d obviously been waiting their turn.)
At buoy 2, the water was shallow enough for the paddlers in front of me to jump off their boards and stand in the water while they turned their boards. (Allistair had mentioned this to me earlier, but as I hadn’t tried this, I decided to stick with what I knew, so stayed on my board and swung my arms around like a giant whisk until the board was pointing in the right direction.
For most of the first circuit I had someone just about in sight to follow, so no need to count my strokes. But by my second circuit they were too far ahead for me to see and follow.
For the first 5 buoys and the flag turn, I did pretty much OK, counting my strokes and looking and listening for clues. But after turning 90°at buoy 5, I got my head down and went for it. 50 strokes should take me to the side of the pier on my right, and another 12 strokes should take me within sight of the buoy 6. However when I looked up at 50 strokes, the pier, which should have been a couple of metres to my right, was quite a distance away. Bugger, with my head down, I’d gone off course. I quickly paddled back toward the pier, and could have sworn I saw another proner catching me up. (I was told later that the guy behind me was way back, and I must have imagined it). Once back at the pier, I worked out my direction and eventually found buoy 6.
For the next few turns I was fine, but when I arrived on the beach to run around the flag, I found I’d arrived at the wrong flag. Fortunately, it was only a metre or 2 from the right one, so no biggy.
Back in the water, my eyes were tiring, and it took a wee while to track down buoy 4.
Buoy 5 should have been 90 strokes from no.4, but at the count of 90, no.5 was nowhere to be seen. I stopped for a second, looked around and then tossed an imaginary coin – left or right. I went right, and within 3 strokes, buoy no.5 was in sight.
Heading for buoy 6, I was counting my 50 strokes, but something was wrong. I could hear cheering, and I guessed this was coming from the beach, which should be at my 10 or 11 o’clock, but it was at my 12. This meant I’d done the same as last time and veered off course. I did a quick correction to my 1 o’clock, only to see the pier start to appear to my 11 and not my 2 as it should have.
Again, I had to stop for a second and think this through. There was only one pier, and it had to be on my right, so back to my 10 o’clock I went.
With the pier now in the right position, I soon found buoy no.6, turned for 7, and then headed for home.
As I swam the final stretch towards the beach, I could hear loads of cheering. There must be someone just in front of me, so I swam as hard as I could to close the gap.
As my board hit the beach, I jumped up, and, with a protective arm out in front of me, ran to where I hoped the finish line was. Not exactly sure where it was I just 
ran until someone, (I think it may have been Angela), shouted “stop”.
I was handed a flag, (again, possibly by Angela), and Molly, (by Rhona), and the rest is a bit of a blur.
It turned out that the cheering I had heard was for me. WOW!!
I had come 17th out of 18, (over 5 minutes behind the race winner – England’s 
awesome Andrew Byatt), and was over the moon. The race had been amazing and the overall experience was unbelievable. I had become the first registered blind person to compete in the ISA World Championships, but best of all I had done it whilst representing my country and with an awesome team!
But this wasn’t to be the last race of the day. Well, not for my board anyway. Commander Stumpy was to see further action. Some of the South American countries had been unable to bring their boards, (due to an airline issue), and the fantastic Daniela Spais of Argentina borrowed Stumpy for the women’s 
tech race, where she did a superb job in a tough field!
Photos courtesy of Pablo Jimenez, SUP Junkie UK, Team AA, and Rhona.
