WHERE IS CHRIS COUVE!??? STAND UP PADDLER: AT THE SUP EURO TOUR !
PHOTO CENTRE – CHRIS COUVE
Chris is currently South Africa’s No. 2 ranked Stand Up Paddleboard (SUP) racing athlete ~ in only his rookie season of competing at SUP racing. This might not sound like much, but Chris lives in Gauteng. This is a phenomenal achievement considering that SUP racing events are predominantly ocean based and he must go up against Cape Town & Durban’s best SUP racers in their backyards through big surf breaks and rough ocean swells.
So how did this Gauteng based paddler go from zero to hero in his rookie season of SUP racing, whilst living in Gauteng? Rewind the clocks a few years and we see Chris is a high pedigree paddler with his roots deep in Sprint Kayak, having represented South Africa at a national team level from U18 all the way through to the RSA U23 & RSA University teams competing at many destinations across Europe against the World’s best Sprinters.
Fast forward to present day, we can see his hard work & athletic talent shinning through once again in the relatively new and booming sport of Stand Up Paddleboard racing. Over the last 18 months Chris has been competing in the local Stand Up Paddling South Africa (SUPSA) National Series which consists of 8 races across the country with race favourites such as King of the Bay through the Durban Harbour, or the infamous races like the Hout Bay SUP Challenge in Cape Town which has been known to punish competitors with 50 knot winds.
Chris is now coming out of his rookie SUP season and has no intention of slowing down. He is stepping his game up immensely and is now headed for the European summer to compete against the worlds best SUP racers at the 2016 EuroTour SUP.
Just a quick one about the EuroTour for those of you who haven’t heard about the Tour before… The EuroTour was established in 2015 to bring together the top races and paddlers in Europe with the goal of unifying events and making them more accessible for racers with logistical support.
The EuroTour consists of 14 individual events over 14 consecutive weekends through 9 different European countries. From inner-city, rivers, lakes, seas, oceans and islands The EuroTour has the best events in the best locations.
Over the next 3 weeks, Chris will compete at the 3 of the biggest stops The EuroTour has to offer. First up, Chris will test his ocean skills at the 14km SUP Race Cup in St. Maxime, France on Saturday 21st May. One can expect big names in the SUP circuit to be competing like Connor Baxter and Micheal Booth. From France Chris will hop over to Munich, Germany for The Lost Mills to compete the following weekend. Here he will be competing against big names such at Trevor Tunnington for the coveted ‘Fastest Paddler on Earth’ title through a series of 200m shootout eliminations. Sunday 29th May sees the main event unfold wth a flat 18km race on the beautiful Brombanchsee Lake. This is the event Chris is most suited to and is looking for top honours at the Lost Mills Race. Week three in Europe Chris makes his way over to Basque Counrty in Spain for the Bilbao World SUP Challenge and his share of the €10,000 cash purse.
Not only will Chris experience the trials and tribulations of racing abroad, The Tour will also take him to some of the most awesome paddling locations Europe has to offer. [*then is it possible to add the following section???] Chris has set up an email based blog about the Eurotour that is set to be both entertaining and informative. If you’d like Chris to share his experiences directly to your inbox, please send him an email with your name tochris@star-board.co.za as he’d love to share his SUP stoke with all of you. You can also find him on social media platforms if you’d prefer to follow him there!
Twitter ~ @crcouve: https://twitter.com/
Instagram~ @chriscouve: http://instagram.
