Boothy and Sonni make history as ICF’s First SUP World Champions
Australia’s Michael Booth and Germany’s Sonni Honscheid had to call on all their experience in tough racing conditions to become the first ever ICF stand up paddling world champions on Friday.
Here are the full Results, Live Streams, Video Interviews and Video Summary of Day 1 of the 2019 ICF SUP WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS in Qingdao, China !
Strong winds made the race a challenge for the top international field. Several of the athletes described the conditions as ‘brutal’, forcing Booth and Honscheid to dig deep to wear down their closest rivals.
Booth came to Qingdao with a long list of SUP titles to his name, and looked to put his stamp on the ICF long distance race from the start. But it took him well into the final circuit of the three-lap race to see off the challenge of Hungary’s Hasulyo brothers, Bruno and Daniel.
“It’s awesome to be able to call yourself a world champion, and to be the first ever ICF world champion is pretty special. No-one will be able to take that away from me,” Booth said. “I had a really good race, I just stayed in there, I didn’t lead too much, but led enough to be still pulling enough to see what the guys were doing. “Daniel and Bruno raced absolutely fantastic, and I had to throw my dice right at the end there and I just got away. But I knew if I made just one mistake, Bruno would have got me. “I nearly had a fall right there at the end, and that would have been it. You want these moments, you want to win, and I’m just really happy to have got it done on the day.”
Bruno Hasulyo finished second, 13 seconds behind booth, with brother Daniel a further 20 seconds back in third.
The rough racing conditions caused carnage in the women’s race, with almost half the field unable to finish. But the turbulent ocean suited Sonni Honscheid, who found herself leading for most of the race.
Only France’s Olivia Piana was able to hold on to the German, but when Honscheid popped the question on the final lap, the Frenchwoman was unable to match the challenge.
“I still can’t believe it, I think it has to sink in still, I feel like I’m floating in the clouds,” Honscheid said. “It was a great race, I had a lot of fun, I felt strong all the way. I was looking back quite a few times, because anything can still happen, even in the last few metres of a race you still can make a mistake. I almost fell one time, so I really just had to focus on myself. “Just coming here to Qingdao, and paddling in this place, there is a very special energy.I really enjoy paddling on the open ocean. I’m not the sort of person who likes to race in small places. I still love it as much as the first day I started.”
Piana finished a clear second, with USA’s Fiona Wylde picking up the bronze medal.
Japan picked up triple gold in the age division long races, with Rai Taguchi and Kei Komatsuyama taking the top two positions in the men’s juniors, Miu Kogai finishing ahead of New Zealand’s Brianna Orams and China’s Shujing Lai in the women’s juniors, and Takayo Yokoyama winning the women’s 40+.
Canada’s Tamas Buday, who spent the lead-up as one of the instructors at the ICF SUP development camp, took gold in the men’s 40+, Israel’s Ofir Ram took the men’s 50+ title, and host nation China celebrated gold in the women’s 50+ through Jie Tao.
Results of Day 1 Long Distance of the ICF World SUP Championships 2019
ICF SUP Worlds – Long Distance – Open Women
ICF SUP Worlds – Long Distance – Open Men
ICF SUP Worlds – Long Distance – Junior Women
ICF SUP Worlds – Long Distance – Open Men
ICF SUP Worlds – Long Distance – Master 40+ Women
ICF SUP Worlds – Long Distance – Master 40+ Men
ICF SUP Worlds – Long Distance – Master 50+ Women
ICF SUP Worlds – Long Distance – Master 50+ Men
ICF WORLD SUP CHAMPIONSHIPS 2019 – Day 1 – Live Feeds & Videos
Long Distance – Open
Long Distance – Juniors, Master 40+, Master 50+
Long Distance – Top Men’s Finish
Long Distance – Top Women’s Finish
Interview of Sonni Honscheid – Gold Medal – ICF LONG DISTANCE WORLD CHAMPION
Interview of Michael Booth – Gold Medal – ICF LONG DISTANCE WORLD CHAMPION
Welcome back to the second part of the TotalSUP look back at the Paddle Logger Rise and Glide Podcast. In the first part of this feature, Chris from TotalSUP sat down with his headphones on and enjoyed the first 5 episodes with Maddie and Holly and now he is back with episodes 6 through 11. […]
The 2023 ICF SUP World Championships (15-19 November 2023) in Pattaya, Thailand is on! Here are the podium results of the highly-stacked celebration of our sport welcoming nearly 50 nations! Watch the 2023 ICF SUP World Championships with TotalSUP here DAY 4&5: TECHNICAL RACE RESULTS – WINNERS Men Open Technical Final 1. Connor Baxter (USA) 2. […]
The 2023 ICF SUP World Championships (15-19 November) in Pattaya, Thailand has officially kicked off! TotalSUP caught up with the Starboard SUP Dream Team Riders to ask about their SUP racing season to date, board set up and the ICF Worlds expectations. Fiona Wylde: SUP season to date: I’m coming from a bit of a […]
From Sunday, September 24 to October 1st, don’t miss a thing of all the action of the 2023 ISA World SUP & Paddleboard Championships in Les Sables d’Olonne, France with TotalSUP! As Official Media Partner of the #WSUPPC, TotalSUP broadcasts all the event’s LIVE webcasts both here on our website and on the TotalSUP Facebook […]
Last year Japanese SUP Racer and new Starboard recruit Rai Tagushi left a lasting impression in the world SUP Racing community by securing a double win at the 1st edition of the Busan SUP Open in Korea, one of the most remarkable performances of the year 2022. As we approach the 2nd edition of this […]
Starboard Team launches Gen-R, this highly anticipated board for 2024 is a new breed amongst Starboards already extensive and world class range of race SUPs. There have been a few boards circulating amongst the Starboard Dream Team riders, where they have already been exhibiting amazing performances on them. The Gen-R is ‘bridging the gap’ between […]
Power, focus and conviction seem to be the accurate words to describe the racing style of Linus Karlsson, six-time Swedish SUP Champion and Starboard Team Rider. TotalSUP caught up with Linus in between two races – Planet Baltic SUP Race in Poland (where he has just bagged fresh podiums – Technical Race Win and Silver […]
Blackfish Performance Camps return to Howe Sound! The next three three-day highly-focused SUP training camp organised by the Blackfish Paddles team will be held on 4-6 August 2023 in Squamish, B.C. Canada and led by three time World SUP Champion, Wingfoil Race World Champion and all-round waterwoman Olivia Piana. “I am super excited to announce […]
[APP World Tour Press Release] The Han River provided the perfect setting for the 2023 APP‘s Asian Championship hosted by KAPP (Korean Association of Paddlesurf Professionals) in Seoul this past weekend. As Korea’s Capital City with 25 million residents, it was a fantastic opportunity for KAPP to provide a showcase of the sport to a […]
Use of cookies
This website uses cookies in order to make it easier to use and to support the provision of relevant information and functionality to you.
Necessary Cookies
Necessary cookies enable core functionality such as security, network management, and accessibility. You may disable these by changing your browser settings, but this may affect how the website functions.
3rd Party Cookies
We use a set of third party tools to provide information on how our users engage with our website so that we can improve the experience of the website for our users. For example, we collect information about which of our pages are most frequently visited, and by which types of users. Keeping this cookie enabled helps us to improve our website.
Please enable Strictly Necessary Cookies first so that we can save your preferences!