It’s a popular narrative that often attaches itself to the plethora of annual summer athletic contests held in Hood River: the event gets bigger every year, and draws in more people from around the globe who come to see what the Gorge has to offer.
And while that’s becoming a common occurrence, even by Gorge standards, last weekend’s Naish Columbia Gorge Paddle Challenge was off the charts.
Steve Gates, event organizer and president of Big Winds, was blown away by the popularity of this year’s stand-up paddleboarding (SUP), which featured a course race at the Hood River Waterfront on Saturday and a downwinder race from Viento to Hood River on Sunday.
“It was extraordinary… we had 350 people downwinding in the race yesterday,” he said Monday morning. “That’s almost 100 people more than we’ve ever had before.
“This year was the best it’s ever been,” Gates added.
Adding to the appeal of the two-day event, which drew a multitude of spectators in addition to the approximately 400 people, young and old, who competed in the event, the Paddle Challenge was host to ideal conditions for the both contests: blue skies and flat water for the course race on Saturday, and after days of no wind, blue skies and 20-25 m.p.h. westerlies on Sunday for the downwinder. It was a stark departure from the wildfire smoke and windless weather that marred the 2015 event — although, seemingly had no impact on the attendance that year.
“The wind came in on schedule Saturday night; we could not have scripted it any better,” Gates said.
What began as a modest SUP competition in 2011 has caught the attention of some of the world’s most accomplished paddlers, putting it as one of the three most competitive SUP competitions on the planet. Last weekend’s event drew teams from Tahiti, Australia, New Zealand, France, and other parts of the globe. The elite categories were extremely competitive, especially for the women.
“Out of the top 20 (women) that are on the world ranking, only one of them wasn’t here… this was the most stacked women’s race in any SUP race, ever,” noted Fiona Wylde, 19, of Hood River, who’s a globetrotting SUP athlete herself, currently ranked fourth on the women’s world rankings. Wylde, who has continued to rack up top finishes while dealing with Type 1 diabetes that she was diagnosed with last year, took the Waterwoman prize, winning the Paddle Challenge overall for the women’s category after taking first in the elite women double downwinder (that’s running from Viento to Hood River… twice) and third in the elite women course race. Connor Baxter, of Hawaii, was named the Waterman.
“Diabetes didn’t really hold me back,” Wylde noted, although she now has to wear a continuous glucose monitor on her abdomen and give herself insulin, along with implementing other day-to-day lifestyle changes.
While Wylde’s top finish wasn’t that much of shocker — she did the same thing in 2013 — Hannah Hill’s performance was a bit more of a surprise. The Hood River Valley High School junior placed 13th of 30 in the elite women’s course race (third in the 17U division) and placed fourth of 32 in the elite women (first in 17U). Hill, who trains with Wylde — both of whom have gone through the Big Winds youth SUP program — all of a sudden leapt from 58th on the world rankings to 20th thanks to her finishes last weekend.
“It felt really awesome and I was pretty shocked by how much I moved up,” Hill said, who agreed with Wylde’s assessment that the race had attracted plenty of big names in SUP racing. “I was expecting maybe to move up into the 40s.”
“It was a huge, huge jump for Hannah; she’s suddenly on the international radar… she’s worked really hard for it,” Gates said, who is Hill’s coach.
Local youth male athletes also had some great finishes. Another Big Winds athlete and HRV student, Leif Bergstrom, took fourth overall in the open men’s course race and first in the men’s 18-39 category. Gates also noted that locals went 1-2-3 in the open men’s race (Rod Parmenter, MacRae Wylde, and Dan Gavere, respectively). He added that Todd Anderson took seventh overall in the men’s open class of the downwinder — reportedly his first SUP race ever. There was also a large Gorge contingent in the groms and other youth categories — many of whom come from the Big Winds teams.
Gates expects more people to come to the event next year, both due to the growing prominence of the event and the accessibility of the sport itself. Though that may mean some more categories or seeding to break up the increasingly large race starts, the idea of the Paddle Challenge was always to showcase the Gorge — as well as put on a fun SUP race.
“People love coming to Hood River; people love the warm, friendly atmosphere that we put out,” he explained. “Our original vision was to invite people to come here and share our town and experience the hospitality and the great family atmosphere, and it continues to have that.”
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For more race results, head to the event’s website (gorgepaddlechallenge.com).
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