2024 Busan SUP Open – APP World Tour

Taking place in Busan, Korea at Gwangalli Beach, the APP World Tour returns for its third year of the Busan SUP Open. Top athletes from around the world gathered to gain valuable points in order to be crowned the overall world champion in the racing discipline.

Day 1 saw the spirits take place. Duna Gordillo came into the Busan SUP Open as the favorite and certainly did not disappoint in today’s sprint racing action, dominating from the very beginning to take a well deserved victory. With fierce competition from fellow compatriot Laura Quetglas, but also some of Japan’s fastest Ladies, Hirata Otono and Baba Natsumi and not forgetting the ever improving Su Jeong Lim who looks more comfortable than ever in her new home in Busan, Duna was able to maintain her composure and cross the line in first, continuing her winning streak on the APP World Tour.

On the mens side, the Danish powerhouse Christian Andersen looked dominant, calm and confidant: the fastest off the start and the most comfortable at navigating the surf legs to advance all the way through to the Finals. Once there, Christian put on his best performance of the day, taking a clear lead off the start in a stacked final that featured Shuri ‘Shrimpy’ Araki from Spain, Aaron Sanchez and Antonio Morillo, both from Spain. An impressive opening day for the young Dane who clearly has his sights set on what would be a well deserved and maiden event victory here on the APP World Tour.

Day 2 saw the distance race take to the water.

Duna Gordillo fulfilled her headline position at the 2024 Busan SUP Open by taking victory in the distance race and overall for the Championship event. Leading off the start, she put together a smart race and maintained her lead throughout to take victory. However, the young Japanese talent, Baba Natsumi stayed with her the whole race to take an impressive 2nd place in her first ever APP World Tour event. In 3rd place was Hirata Otono from Japan, who wrapped a great weekend for the Japanese team in Busan. Given that Hirata and Baba both secured the same points with 2nds and 3rds across the two days, it was Baba who secured 2nd place overall with the distance tie breaker.

After posting a solid 2nd place finish in the sprints on Saturday, the 18 year old phenom from Okinawa, Shuri ‘Shrimpy’ Araki knew what he had to do on Day 2 – it was simple, just win. And that he did and then some.  Blasting off the start with what seemed like almost double the stroke cadence of anyone else, he separated from the pack almost immediately and consistently grew his lead through the 9km race to take an impressive victory. By the time he finished, he had built a full minute and a half lead on the rest of the pack which was led by the great Dane, Christian Andersen who finished in 2nd, with Aaron Sanchez from Mallorca rounding out the top 3.

While Shrimpy and Christian are therefore tied for points, the tiebreaker for this event was established as the distance, awarding the overall win to Shrimpy, while validating Christian’s position as one of the very best and well rounded paddlers in the world.