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Training Hard, Dreaming Big: the Rise of Argentinian SUP Racer Alma Coletta Spada

South America has some of the strongest SUP Racers and SUP surfers on the race scene and it seems like every year we find one or more talented paddlers from the area making an impact on the world stage. Argentinian paddler, Alma Colleta Spada is one of the top racers from the continent and she’s heading to a start line near you for 2024. Alma took some time from her busy schedule to talk to Chris from TotalSUP about where to SUP in Argentina and her plans for the season ahead.

Hi Alma, welcome to TotalSUP! 

Hola from Argentina, Chris!

I know you are the current Argentinian national SUP champion event and we saw you in action racing at the ISA World Championships in France with impressive results. 

Thank you, I try my best in the races and enjoyed France a lot. I finished in eleventh place in the long distance and eighth place in the Technical race. And yes, 2023 I won the Argentina National Champion race, it was so good to win that after winning as a junior in 2021.

Alma Coletta Spada, top step of the podium

Great results and great to see national champions from all over the world make it to Europe to race. Argentina is a huge country, where are you based and what is the paddling like there?

It is a long country and there are too many places to count where you can paddle. I am from Mar del Plata which is a city south of Buenos Aires. We have so many beautiful beaches here which include Playas del Faro, Acantilados and Chapadmalal. Summer here is fantastic, warm and sunny with great water conditions, you should visit! 

Regarding places that I recommend, here in Mar del Plata there are excellent conditions for training, on each beach along this coast there are different conditions and it helps you have more versatility and easy adaptation to the different conditions. 

Some of the beaches that I recommend from here are: 

  • Playa Grande. This beach is located in the centre of the city, it is the one you see on Wikipedia! The beach has good waves and you can paddle out into the sea since it is located next to the port exit. 
  • Waikiki. A beach with a long wave with a rocky bottom, ideal for racing
  • Varesse. This beach is between two breakwaters, a quiet beach for beginners
  • Serena. One of the calmest waves in the south, ideal for surfing with the raceboard 
  • Chapadmalal. A stronger wave in the south, a little more violent sea but fun waves.

SUP Raceboard sifting with Alma on her Infinity Blackfish

If a paddler visiting Argentina asked you where they should take their board where would you suggest? 

Oh, I have a bucket list of different places around the country where I would like to paddle so I would tell them to go to those, and then they could tell me afterwards if they were as good as I think they are! 

I would love to be able to paddle in the different cold lakes of Patagonia. I have had the opportunity to travel there but without my board and the area is so beautiful! I would also like to have the opportunity to go to the waves further south, in the province of Río Negro.

I would really love to travel the length and breadth of my country, but these two places came to mind first. I was already able to tour the entire country with my family except for Chaco and Formosa, I live in a beautiful country!

I think I have to add those to my list too! Outside of Argentina are there any special places you want to visit with your board? 

California and Hawaii, I think every paddler wants to go to those two for the surfing, the incredible downwinders in Hawaii and, of course, for the race scene.

For other racing opportunities, I would love to travel to Europe and take part in as many EuroTour events as possible. Then a little closer to home I would like to explore some of Central America. 

Alma with an Infinity Blackfish dugout

You are an Infinity Paddler, which is the board you reach for when you go for a paddle?

I love using the Blackfish flat deck model as it adapts to all the conditions in which I paddle. Mar del Plata is a place where conditions change constantly, there is almost always wind and you can paddle in both flat water and waves. This board model easily adapts to all conditions, it is fast and stable. I really do love it! 

At the ISA World Championship in France in 2023 I had the opportunity to use a Blackfish Dugout, owned by my team-mate Juliette, and I also really liked it. I noticed that this model has a higher volume than the Blackfish and having never used it before gave you a lot of confidence when getting on it. It was easy to adapt.

I need to try an Infinity Whiplash model soon! 

And how did you get started with Infinity?

My coach at the time thought that Infinity was one of the best brands on the market and I was lucky enough to try a Blackfish flatdeck prior to purchasing my board from this brand; It is often hard to find boards locally but Infinity has an official distributor in our country, making it much easier to try them and get one. 

Access to high-quality boards is so important, great to see you can get Infinity boards in Argentina. We have seen that you have had some big results in International races, how did you start in SUP and when did you start to race?

I have been practising SUP since I was 11 years old, 9 years ago now. That was thanks to some contacts that my mother had at the Club Nautico, a place I have been going to since I was 5 years old and I continue going and training to this day. In this Nautical Club, after I tried the activity, they opened a SUP school, which I signed up to continue doing the sport that these contacts of my mother had taught me. 

I really enjoy teaching classes at the same school today.

I did some races for fun but it was at age 16 when I began to compete at the national level on a race board and that same year I was able to qualify for my first international competition, the 2019 ISA World Championships in El Salvador, as a Junior on my team. 

In that ISA, I went without much experience in competitions, but I trained a lot for the event, mostly in waves knowing that the course in El Salvador would be in the ocean. The training was good and I managed to get a 6th place Junior in the technical race.

Sixth place at your first international event is a very good start to your racing career!  

Yes, it was. After this ISA I had great motivation to continue training in the sport, to see what I could accomplish. But then racing became more difficult because of the pandemic. But that was an opportunity for me to grow into the sport and I worked on my skills a lot, more than anything with racing in waves. It was a period in which I was able to improve my skills a lot.

It seems strange now, looking back at 2020 and the impact that had. But a great mindset, working on skills.

Thank you, the work I did helped me win the 2021 title of junior Argentine Champion. 

Fantastic! 

Yes, winning was a very proud moment for me and my family. And it was the best motivator for more races and international competitions.

The first post-pandemic ISA was in 2022 in Puerto Rico, did you go?

Yes, I qualified to represent Argentina in the long-distance event and finished in 11th place. It wasn’t my best year but I learned a lot. The ISA event in Puerto Ricco inspired me to work harder and I started I focus on high-performance training, which I continue to this day. It was a good change.

Tell us, how was Alma Colleta Spada’s 2023 race season? 

It was great! At the national level, I won all my races, except one where I had an injury and could not race as I wanted. Those results qualified me for the ISA in France and we talked about that. And I won the senior national champion title for the first time.

Ready to race in 2024!

That was a pretty good year! What can we expect to see from you in 2024?

Right now I’m in the middle of a super pre-season, with a lot of training for this year. Super focused, on competing at a national and international level. 

I always wanted to go to several international competitions such as APP, Eurotour, ICF, Aloha and a lot of international competitions, but the economic situation at the country level does not allow me to go to a large number of events/competitions, there is no financial aid or the ISA and I have to pay everything myself, it is quite expensive being on the other side of the world, but soon I will be able to go even further!

Alma, thank you for sharing your favourite spots and your ambitions for the season ahead. All of the team at TotalSUP wish you “buena suerte” for 2024!

Alma Colletta Spada is an international racer and national champion on her Infinity SUP Racebaord. Away from her SUP Racing career, she is a lifeguard, helmsman, and chef and she is currently studying for a Bachelor’s Degree in Administration. You can keep up with her busy life on Instagram!

Infinity Surfboards are a family-owned and family-run business based in Dana Point, CA, USA with a range of SUP Race boards for every racer available through their website, you can read about Alma’s favourite Infinity Blackfish flatdeck here on TotalSUP

You can see more Infinity Boards in action on their social media channels – InstagramFacebook and YouTube.

About the Author

Chris Jones

Chris is the driving force behind SUP My Race, a distance challenge group for Stand Up Paddlers on Facebook. He is a super-keen paddler who has been on the water for nearly 10 years now and shows no sign of stopping. When he isn’t logging data on his laptop he can be found on the lakes and coastal waters in south west Sweden.

To follow Chris:

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