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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Local paddleboard racer moves into world top 10

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An adventurous two months of paddling around the United States and Europe have moved a Wrightsville Beach-area athlete into the top 10 of women’s competitive standup paddleboard racers.

After spending her late spring competing on a European paddleboard racing tour, April Zilg moved up to No. 9 in the SUP Racer website world rankings, the highest ranking yet for the paddleboard trainer who organizes races in Wrightsville Beach.

Zilg placed fifth or better in all four of her races on the 11-race EuroTour circuit, her first international competition since 2013. Zilg described the tour as challenging, noting that each race was approximately the same distance as the noted graveyard course at Wrightsville Beach’s Carolina Cup SUP race.

“It’s like the graveyard, every weekend,” she said. “They were long races.”

And while most of the racing was on flat water similar to Banks Channel, she had her best finish in the last of the four races. Zilg placed third in the San Sebastian Paddle Tour as the northern Spanish coastal city offered conditions not unlike those of Wrightsville Beach.

“I was so happy that it was actually in the ocean and it was windy, so there was wind and swell for me to use,” Zilg said.

The European tour gave Zilg the chance to race against a group of other women of her caliber, as well as compete on an advanced board. While most women’s races in the United States have women compete on 12-foot, 6-inch boards, Zilg’s sponsor Hobie sent a 14-foot board for her to compete on in Europe.

Zilg’s tour started May 21 in St. Maxime, France, a town on the southern coast just west of Cannes, where she finished fifth in the 12-mile race in the Mediterranean Sea that was split over two days.

From France, Zilg traveled to Brombachsee, in the Bavarian region of Germany, for a weekend of racing called the Lost Mills, named for the centuries-old mills that decorate the landscape around Lake Brombach. In addition to the 18-kilometer race, where she finished fourth, the event also featured a competition for “Fastest Paddler on Earth.” While Zilg finished sixth on her Hobie brand board in the 200-meter race that tested paddlers on their quickness, she finished second in a running of the race that put each competitor on the same inflatable board.

After Germany, Zilg and her Hobie teammates competed in two races in Spain, the first in Bilbao, and then to neighboring San Sebastian, her final stop with the tour. In Bilbao, the racers paddled by the famous Guggenheim Museum on the Nervion River. Zilg said the tour was filled with memorable sights and landmarks.

Zilg didn’t take the tour alone, as she was joined by two members of the Hobie race board team, with the three traveling by car between the stops. Traveling by car gave her the chance to paddle and tour other parts of Europe, including some scenic stops in Switzerland.

Her European tour was wedged in between an active period of domestic SUP race touring. Following her eighth-place finish at the Carolina Cup in April, Zilg won the Key West Paddle Classic the following weekend. She also won a race in Connecticut and competed in Maryland after returning from Europe.

Since her target was the Carolina Cup and Key West races, Zilg said she knew she couldn’t keep up the fitness or nutrition levels for her competition in Europe, so her main focus was to work on race strategy against other athletes of her caliber.

“Here, I’m either in front or at the back,” Zilg said. “I was seeking out people that were at a similar speed and I found them. It was really great to race alongside of them.”

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