The Lake Rocks Festival 2024: Gerd Weisner on the international flair, world-class SUP riders, parties and the Paradoxa

The Lake Rocks Festival returns with a bang to Faaker See in the Austrian state of Carinthia. Held on the 9-12 May and live-streamed by TotalSUP, this prominent stop of the renowned SUP Alps Trophy racing series now joins the ranks of the ICF World Ranking Series. Boasting a prize pool of €12,000, this SUP Festival guarantees an electrifying experience for participants spanning elite athletes to passionate amateur SUP enthusiasts, as well as for eager spectators. Against the backdrop of stunning landscapes and turquoise waters of Faaker See, complemented by rad after-parties, this is an unmissable event on the calendar.

Photo by Andy Klotz Photography

TotalSUP caught up with Gerd Weisner, lifelong watersports pro, Co-Founder of Light Board Corp and The Lake Rocks Festival Managing Director, to gain insights into the festival’s significance, its offerings and the spirit of competition and sheer fun capturing the beauty of our sport.

Hi Gerd, could you remind our readers what’s your and the Light Board Corp involvement in the Lake Rocks Festival 2024?

The SUP Alps Trophy is part of our company and we take care to bring it to the next level. It might sound a bit too confident but imagine if we can create a SUP race festival series that can be compared to something like “Tour de France” in the future. I dream big and want to get SUP racing to where it belongs. It’s a sport that embraces so many active participants – it deserves to get to a prime spot in the media.

Photo by Andy Klotz Photography

The Lake Rocks Festival 2024 is our season opening and we are really happy to cooperate with the Tourism Office of Villach, FaakerSee Kärnten Austria region. It is one of the most beautiful areas in Europe and they had the vision to create paddelstadt.at – embracing the SUP paddle community.

Photo by Andy Klotz Photography

I’m the Managing Director, Rudy van Haven is our Race Director and we have great crew of helping hands especially the local crew from the Tourism Office Helga, Michael and Christoph to get it all going! There’s also the media crew that is also super important Marco, Thiemo, Dagi and at the forefront Mathieu and Marco!

Photo by Andy Klotz Photography

What’s new? What participants can expect from the 2024 edit of the Lake Rocks Festival?

It was one of the premium SUP Race Festivals in 2023 and the 2024 edition is set to be even better in terms of participation and the level of competitors. This is where you can compete against national best and the world’s elite athletes as well as your friends.

Photo by Andy Klotz Photography

We have an entry level Fun Race, a real Long Distance and Tech Race with prize money, an iSUP Tech Race in the city with a nice party as well as a new race format called “The Fastest Paddler of The Lake” where you have to race beach start 100m out and around a buoy and back to the beach. You can start multiple times.

Photo by Andy Klotz Photography

During all competitions you can test the latest products from the best manufacturers and have a good time enjoying music, food, drinks and live music. We are excited to see Mathieu commenting again this year.

PARADOXA at Lake Rocks Festival 2024 – Building on the hype around the board from the ICF Worlds in Pataya, which models will be available to test at the event?

Oh yes, we will have a booth and everyone can test the LIGHTBOARDCORP® PARADOXA board in all dimensions. It’s crazy how so many SUP racers are excited to test the board and prove the testimonials. This board is so unique and different to all existing.

Could you share who’s coming from the Light Board Corp “Army of Amateurs” and worlds elite racers?

What a pleasure, the ARMY OF AMATEURS will compete against the worlds finest! We have been promised entries from Michael Booth, Susak Molinero, Cameron Tripney, Donato Freens, Vaic Garioud, Blue Ewer, Paolo Marconi, Bodie Van Almen, Andrey Kraytor, Joep Van Bakel, Chris Taucher, Peter Weidert, Manuel Lauble, Reka Slekta to name just few. Actually we have registrations from sixteen countries and more to come. Also in the age groups of Juniors and Masters the starter list is high profile with a huge participation from Hungary, Germany, Italy,  Austria and more.

Photo by Andy Klotz Photography

What I like about the event is that we all start together in the Long Distance race. It’s exciting to have huge participation and comparison between all of us from young to mature paddlers, amateur to pro. Finally we will have podiums for the fastest, Juniors up to 11 and up to 15 as well as Masters in the 50+ and 60+ categories.

Photo by Andy Klotz Photography

The Light Board Corp Army of Amateurs will do the best to get good results – Normen Weber, Peter Weidert, Hermann Husslein, Benyam Bossack, myself and all our Team Riders are stoked to race and reach their individual goals.

Photo by Andy Klotz Photography

You mentioned early an announcement of a new Light Board Team Rider.– Could you give us some insider tips?

Oh, yes! He’ll fit right in with the Team. He has already tested the 14×22 PARADOXA and fell in love. He was on the podium of the 2024 GlaGla Long Distance race and will officially switch this May. I guess most of you have a good idea now. He is capable to paddle long distance races at a very high average speed all on his own. Combine this with Normen Weber’s tactical experience and sprint talent, making them even more lethal to other pro paddlers. The ARMY OF AMATEURS will get faster.

Will you be competing and what’s your Paradoxa model of choice?

Yes, I love SUP racing and besides all the organizational duties I will race for sure the Long Distance and jump in between taking results on the board in the Masters Tech Race. I’m around 90 kg so my board of choice is the 14×23 PARADOXA. Thanks for the opportunity to talk about our SUP race festival and see you soon Mathieu.

Photo by Andy Klotz Photography

The Lake Rocks Festival 2024 – REGISTER

To find out more, visit Festival – Paddelstadt.at

To find out more about LIGHTBOARDCORP® designs, visit lightboardcorp.com 

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