Eight discs of pale wood, rounded like a pebble, the logo laser-engraved and a single word underneath. They come from the Ultime Sport workshop in Saint-Pierre-de-Chartreuse, and right now they are sitting on a table. On Sunday 4 October, at 4.30 pm on Sougey beach, eight paddlers will take one home.
Which ones? Nobody knows yet. Here is where the season stands, going into the Very Flat Race.
How the points work
Four rounds have already been raced: the GlaGla Race Freestyle in January, Savières and Lake Bourget on 26 April, the Tropical Race in Geneva on 31 May, and the Y-Plage Summer Race in Yverdon on 4 and 5 July. 250 riders are ranked, across 357 individual results.
The scoring is simple, and deliberately inclusive. In every race, the winner scores as many points as there were entrants, the runner-up one less, and so on down to the last finisher. On top of that comes a bonus equal to the number of kilometres of the course, earned by everyone who finishes. Short formats — Technical Race, Sprint — are worth 5 participation points, plus a podium bonus of 12, 8 and 4 points. Finishing last in a big race can pay more than winning a small one: that is the point. We reward the riders who do the season.
The ranking used is the scratch, all categories together. Eight category standings are drawn from it: scratch men and women, inflatable men and women, 60-and-over men and women, junior boys and girls. A rider is ranked as inflatable only if they spent the whole season on an inflatable — one single race on a hard board and they move to hard board. No half measures, no category picked at the last minute.
Scratch men
| Pos. | Rider | Club | Races | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Olivier COMAZZI | SUPspirit Sion | 5 | 215 |
| 2 | Sébastien JALMAIN | Savoie Paddle Club | 4 | 194 |
| 3 | Rémi CHAMORRO | Savoie Paddle Club | 4 | 174 |
| 4 | Lionel MOLARD | Savoie Paddle Club | 4 | 159 |
| 5 | Jean-Philippe DARGEOU | Lac d’Annecy Paddle Club | 4 | 148 |
| 6 | Gatien OTHON | — | 4 | 146,5 |
| 7 | Nicolas DUISIT | — | 5 | 130 |
| 8 | Philippe NUGUES | Lac d’Annecy Paddle Club | 4 | 124 |
| 9 | Manuel BRIGNOLI | DeltaSUP ASD | 2 | 118 |
| 10 | Mathieu CHARPIN | Pagaies Club Thonon | 3 | 113,5 |
Olivier Comazzi leads by 21 points, and he has built that lead the hard way: five races, never off the pace, the only rider in the top 5 to have made the trip to Yverdon. Which settles nothing: Sunday’s long distance, with sixty-four entrants, is worth more than seventy points to the winner on its own.
And one line deserves a pause: Jean-Philippe Dargeou is 5th overall at 62, ahead of a hundred or so younger paddlers.
Scratch women
| Pos. | Rider | Club | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Maya JALMAIN (14) | Savoie Paddle Club | 145,5 |
| 2 | Lou JALMAIN (12) | Savoie Paddle Club | 97,5 |
| 3 | Clémence LEPOUTRE (15) | Pagaies Club Thonon | 80,5 |
| 3 | Lucie DUTRUEL (17) | Pagaies Club Thonon | 80,5 |
| 5 | Estelle TUAZ-TORCHON | Lac d’Annecy Paddle Club | 76 |
| 6 | Felicity HURST | Oxford SUP Club | 75,5 |
| 7 | Pauline LAMURE | Rhône SUP Club | 65,5 |
| 8 | Emma HENRIOT (14) | Pagaies Club Thonon | 63 |
| 9 | Edith TEULADE (63) | Pagaies Club Thonon | 56,5 |
| 9 | Fabienne LEVALLOIS | — | 56,5 |
The top two places in the women’s standings are held by two sisters aged 14 and 12. Five of the top ten are under eighteen, and Clémence Lepoutre and Lucie Dutruel are dead level on the third step. The ninth, meanwhile, is sixty-three. We will not pretend this was planned.
Inflatable
Close to four bibs in ten on this circuit are on an inflatable. This is not a consolation category.
Men (48 ranked) — Rémi CHAMORRO 174 · Nicolas DUISIT 130 · Marc-Henri PANETIER 62 · Luka DUISIT 59.5 · Sébastien ROLLAND 52
Chamorro is 3rd in the scratch, all boards combined, ahead of the vast majority of hard boards. And Luka Duisit, 16, is 4th in this category, right behind his father Nicolas.
Women (18 ranked) — Estelle TUAZ-TORCHON 76 · Caroline POINTUD 47.5 · Marielle BOUCHET 42.5 · Anne-Marie GOLDENBERG 34 · Anaïs BODELET 33.5
60 and over
Men (13 ranked) — Jean-Philippe DARGEOU (62) 148 · Bernard PETROGNANI (72) 105.5 · Mark KRUISHEER (61) 102.5 · Stéphane LE GLOANIC (61) 60.5 · Luca CASSOLO (62) 47
Women (6 ranked) — Edith TEULADE (63) 56.5 · Martine CHOLLET (71) 30.5 · Lesley HODGE (60) 25 · Isabelle COURSIMAULT (65) 23.5 · Nicole CONTE (65) 21
Bernard Petrognani is seventy-two, has two rounds in his legs, and is three points clear of a sixty-one-year-old Swiss. The Very Flat can turn all of it around.
Juniors
Boys — Luka DUISIT (16) 59.5 · Gabriel HENRIOT (17) 48.5 · Théo DUISIT (14) 39.5
Girls — Maya JALMAIN (14) 145.5 · Lou JALMAIN (12) 97.5 · Clémence LEPOUTRE (15) 80.5 · Lucie DUTRUEL (17) 80.5 · Emma HENRIOT (14) 63
Luka Duisit is provisional junior champion on an inflatable. Juniors appear in the overall standings and in their own: the same points, read twice.
Who will be on the water on Sunday
The Very Flat Race has been sold out since 19 September: a hundred bibs, the cap agreed with the managers of the Lake Aiguebelette nature reserve.
A hundred bibs, but a hundred and fifty-eight starts: sixty-four on the 11.5 km long distance, thirty-four on the 4.5 km short distance, two on the Kids Race, thirty on the afternoon Technical Race and twenty-eight on the Dragon Race. Close to a third of the field races morning and afternoon.
On the start line: five nationalities, thirty-eight inflatables to fifty-four hard boards, ages from twelve to seventy-four, and an average age of fifty-one.
What is still open
The Very Flat is the biggest field of the season, so it is the round that pays the most points. None of the eight standings above is settled. Some will come down to a few seconds on the flat water of Aiguebelette; others were settled back in April, on the Savières canal, on a morning when you had to get up early.
The final overall rankings will be announced on Sunday at 4.30 pm on Sougey beach, straight after the race podiums. Admission is free, and a mass start of a hundred paddleboards on perfectly flat water is very good watching from the shore.
If the race is new to you, its story starts in 2015 on a lake with no motorboats, classified a nature reserve two months earlier. This is the eleventh edition.
Provisional standings after four rounds, taken from the overall rankings online. Something wrong with your position? Write to us at [email protected] before Sunday.