I am not exactly sure if we really understand what shakira represent in the SUP sport in Australia
She is the only athlete that excels in the 3 disciplines of the sport.
This year at the ISA she got 2 gold 1 silver and 1 bronze. She is the 1st ever athlete men or women to collect an individual medal in each of the 3 disciplines the same year :Surfing, marathon , technical race.
So technically she is the actual world title holder of the SUP technical race.

Yesterday I am waiting for my race to start at the Aussie title and it was the day of the technical race indeed.

Girls are going first so I know I can watch their race before.
I look back and see shakira under the tent so I ask her why she is not getting ready and she tells me she can't race because she didn't get a wild card!!!
I can't believe my ears. I look on the starting line and I count 7 girls!!!
And behind me the world title holder can't race because they can't find her a spot??!!
It's even better than that. The day before she asked and understood she could enter online so she did, payed her entry fees...and got denied on the beach the next day....I can assure you she was pretty pissed off

So I understand there are rules and I don't want to come into politics in the sport but all I can say is : SUP is a young sport, we unfortunately have a women starting line that looked pretty empty yesterday, so when we have a current world title holder that want to race, please some flexibility would be welcome.

Do we want to develop the sport or commit suicide?

If I was her i am not sure I would train next year to represent my country at the ISA world championship...but she most certainly won't be able to do it anyway as she did not participate at the national title yesterday!!!

To me this is a very bad joke, so if somebody can come with a reasonable excuse on how this could have even happened please don't be shy.

If any athlete in this sport can come up and say to me : That was the right decision, shakira should not have been on the starting line, don't hesitate either.

That was a really bad call and it does upset me greatly because the rest of the day was fantastic: good races, good organisation, good pics/ video/ results from surfing Australia. I honestly think you did a fantastic job.


Gold at the technical race

Silver at the Marathon

Bronze in the surfing

Amazing story.....

And if none of the women who participated in the technical race yesterday want to go to the ISA event, expect to see Surfing Australia backflip and beg Shak to repeater her heroics of 2014.

I blame Tony Abbott..

what a joke she is the only complete package in all forms of SUP this country has from the female side.

The men had wild card entries race I believe

Good call Al. How would it hurt to let her line up and race.

I reckon one of your competitor countries got their money's worth out of your officials :)

I hear what you are saying and it does sound a bit stupid given there were only 7 competitors - but one can only wonder why she did not register sooner when everyone else did ? I imagine there was a deadline. Lots of things have cut off times in life - not just SUP comps.

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Ted the Kiwi said..
I hear what you are saying and it does sound a bit stupid given there were only 7 competitors - but one can only wonder why she did not register sooner when everyone else did ? I imagine there was a deadline. Lots of things have cut off times in life - not just SUP comps.

she didn't do the states and I think that is the problem

I'm pretty sure the first male surfing sup oz champ was a wildcard who paddled out on his knees

That is a very short sighted call.

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laceys lane said..

Ted the Kiwi said..
I hear what you are saying and it does sound a bit stupid given there were only 7 competitors - but one can only wonder why she did not register sooner when everyone else did ? I imagine there was a deadline. Lots of things have cut off times in life - not just SUP comps.

she didn't do the states and I think that is the problem

That turned out to be a non-issue in several states.

Everyone is welcome at MERIMBULA !!!

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Surfrod66 said...
Everyone is welcome at MERIMBULA !!!

What about the original hipster- dogman