SUP Cup Kemer 2026 results: Araki and Kocsis win both open races

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2026-11-03T20:29:59+00:00

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PaddleStats

Full competition results: SUP Cup Kemer 2026 - ICF World Ranking Event

Shuri Araki and Csillag Kocsis each claimed two wins at SUP Cup Kemer 2026 in Türkiye, sweeping the open long-distance and technical races. The reigning long-distance world champions backed up their victories over 14 km with wins in the technical finals as Kemer brought the seven-event 2026 ICF SUP World Ranking Series to a close.

SUP Cup Kemer 2026 medal table: five golds for neutral athletes

The ranking programme comprised ten events: five long-distance races and five technical races, covering open men, open women, men's 40+, women's 40+ and women's 50+. A total of 29 medals were awarded, with only two classified finishers in the women's 50+ long-distance race. The table below excludes the festival races.

All five golds for neutral athletes came in the masters categories. Their two open medals were both silvers, won by Natalia Novitskaia. Araki accounted for Japan's two golds, while Kocsis took both of Hungary's.

Winners of all ten ranking events:

This was the fourth edition of SUP Cup Kemer at Moonlight Bay (Ayışığı Koyu), and the first to count towards the ICF rankings. Before the event, organiser Orkun Küçükemiroğlu described a 14 km course with views of Mount Tahtalı, the ancient city of Phaselis and the Three Islands.

The long-distance race was originally scheduled for 28 October but was postponed because of a storm. It started at 09:15 local time on 30 October, with the technical races following the next day.

The ranking results show that 70 athletes started at least one race: 51 representing 15 nations, plus 19 neutral athletes. Türkiye had the largest contingent, with 25 starters. There were 74 names on the entry lists, but four athletes were recorded as DNS in every race they entered.

The organiser's bulletin announced a €12,000 prize fund, reserved for the open categories. In each discipline, the top five men and women were to receive €1,200, €800, €500, €300 and €200 respectively.

Araki and Kocsis complete open doubles

Araki, born in 2006, won the long-distance race in 1:18:16.40. Denmark's Christian Andersen finished 1:13.95 behind, with Germany's Benyam Bossack third, 3:49.43 off the winning time. The same three athletes filled the podium in the same order in Saturday's technical final. Araki clocked 4:49.29 to beat Andersen by 6.87 s and Bossack by 24 s.

Just twelve days earlier, on 18 October, Araki had retained his long-distance world title in Sabaudia, Italy. His time of 1:04:55.82 put him 12.35 s clear of Spain's Aarón Sánchez, following his victory in the same event at the 2025 World Championships in Abu Dhabi. The technical race in Sabaudia had been less successful: after winning his semifinal in 4:34.75, he finished seventh in the A final in 5:36.03. See our World Championships recap for more from Italy.

Andersen had finished fourth in that final in 4:45.88, 50.15 s ahead of Araki. In Kemer, their order was reversed.

Bulgaria's Andrii Kraitor, born in 1992 and identified by TotalSUP as the 2024 SUP Cup Kemer winner, set the fastest semifinal time. He won the second semifinal in 2:23.73, 0.42 s quicker than Araki's 2:24.15 in the first. In the final, where the leaders spent roughly twice as long on the course as in the semifinals, Kraitor finished fourth — 5.79 s behind Bossack and 29.79 s behind Araki.

Qualification depended on finishing position within each semifinal, with the top four advancing. Sweden's Linus Karlsson therefore missed out despite clocking 2:39.18, finishing fifth in the second semifinal. Selwyn Pritchard progressed in fourth from the first with a slightly slower 2:40.04.

Kocsis, born in 2007, won the women's long-distance race in 1:27:13.60. Novitskaia finished 4:40.90 behind, while the Netherlands' Marin Hoeboer took third, 8:36.30 back. Kocsis's winning margin was the largest of the four open races. She then set the fastest time at every stage of the technical competition: 2:42.72 in the heats, 2:36.25 in the semifinals and 5:31.21 in the final, where she beat Novitskaia by 14.53 s.

Kocsis had won the long-distance world title in Sabaudia on 18 October, clocking 1:10:55.71 to finish 12.07 s ahead of Spain's Esperanza Barreras. A year earlier in Abu Dhabi, she had won the junior women's title in the same discipline. In this year's world technical final she placed fifth in 5:12.30, with Novitskaia eighth in 5:32.10.

Hanna Kamińska earned Poland's only medal in Kemer's ranking events, taking technical bronze in 5:56.37. She finished 10.63 s behind Novitskaia and 12.42 s ahead of fourth-placed Hoeboer. Kamińska, also born in 2007, was fifth in the long-distance race in 1:38:40.10, 1:25.60 behind Elena Khashina in fourth. Two weeks earlier, on 16 October, she had won open sprint bronze at the World Championships in Sabaudia.

Young paddlers make their mark

There were no separate junior divisions in the ranking races contested in Kemer, so the youngest paddlers competed in open categories. Five of the top seven in the men's long-distance race were born in 2006 or later: Araki, Bossack, Andri Hack, Egor Mizonov and Maksim Merkulov. Athletes from those birth years also accounted for five of the eight places in each open technical final.

Bossack, born in 2009, left Kemer with two open bronze medals. In Sabaudia he had taken junior world long-distance bronze in 1:06:38.13 and finished fifth in the junior technical final.

Hack, born in 2011, placed fourth in the long-distance race in 1:22:11.00, just 5.17 s behind Bossack and 23.30 s ahead of Joep van Bakel in fifth. He had finished 15th in the junior long-distance race at the World Championships. In Kemer's technical competition, he was second in his heat but went out in the semifinals.

Hoeboer, born in 2010, added fourth place in the technical final to her long-distance bronze. At the World Championships, she had finished 19th in the junior women's long-distance race. Elin van der Sar, a year younger, placed eighth in Kemer's technical final.

Poland's Miłosz Sytnik, born in 2009, also reached the technical final. After finishing third in the second semifinal in 2:34.47, he placed eighth in the final in 6:26.06. He was 14th over the long distance in 1:35:08.90.

Of the ten athletes who won open long-distance or technical medals in Sabaudia, only Araki and Kocsis raced in Kemer. As an ICF international ranking event, Kemer awarded 75 percent of the points available at World Cups and World Championships.

Kuzenkova goes quicker than the 40+ winner

Inna Kuzenkova, born in 1976, won both women's 50+ events. Her long-distance time of 1:48:27.90 was 7.90 s faster than that of women's 40+ winner Marina Chuvalova. The United States' Jessica Bouchee finished second in 50+, 31:18.50 behind Kuzenkova. The other two starters in the category, Petra Bozdağ and Andrea Richardson, were disqualified.

Three women started the 50+ technical race the next day, and all three reached the podium. Kuzenkova beat Richardson by 10.85 s, with Bozdağ, born in 1959, taking bronze.

Chuvalova and Ekaterina Gordienko split the women's 40+ wins. Chuvalova took the long-distance race by 5.70 s before Gordienko reversed their order in the technical final, winning by 5.34 s to secure the hosts' only gold. Britain's Jade Rogers won long-distance bronze, while Valeria Kozlenina finished third in the technical race.

There were also two different winners in men's 40+. Vitaly Dronov won the long-distance race, beating American Paul Pianowski by 1:18.30. Alexander Polskoi, third over that distance, then won the technical race by 3.91 s ahead of Dronov. Pianowski added bronze to finish the event with two medals.

What's next? Santa Pola, Phillip Island and December racing

Kemer brought the seven-event 2026 ICF SUP World Ranking Series to a close, but the SUP season is not over. The 8th Great Mediterranean SUP Race in Santa Pola takes place in Spain on 8 November, followed by the Australian SUP Titles 2026 at Phillip Island from 17 to 21 November.

Hamburg's Alster ICE SUP Race 2026 is scheduled for 29 November. December brings Race to the Jungle 2026 in Kanchanaburi, Thailand, on 12–13 December, and SUP4Life 2026 in Ghent, Belgium, on 13 December. Masters paddlers can also look ahead to World Masters Games Kansai 2027 in Kyotango, Japan, in May 2027.

Frequently asked questions

Who won SUP Cup Kemer 2026?

Japan's Shuri Araki and Hungary's Csillag Kocsis each won two open events: long distance and technical. The masters winners were Vitaly Dronov, Alexander Polskoi, Marina Chuvalova, Inna Kuzenkova (twice) and Ekaterina Gordienko.

Who set the fastest long-distance time in Kemer?

Araki covered the 14 km course in 1:18:16.40. Kocsis was the fastest woman in 1:27:13.60.

Why was the long-distance race postponed?

A storm forced organisers to move it from 28 October to 09:15 local time on 30 October. The technical races took place on 31 October.

Who won the most medals?

Individual Neutral Athletes won 11 medals in the ranking events, including five golds. Among national teams, Türkiye and the United States won the most, with three each: gold, silver and bronze for Türkiye, and two silvers and a bronze for the United States.

How did the Polish athletes perform?

Hanna Kamińska won open technical bronze and finished fifth over the long distance. Miłosz Sytnik was eighth in the technical final and 14th in the long-distance race.

Did the hosts win any medals?

Yes, three, all in masters categories: gold and silver for Ekaterina Gordienko, and bronze for Petra Bozdağ. No Turkish athlete reached either open technical final. Their best open long-distance finishes were Hayal Büçkün's 12th in the women's race and Yusuf Erken's 15th in the men's.

Can Kemer's results be compared with the World Championships?

Finishing positions and achievements can be compared, but times are not directly comparable across different courses and conditions. The fields also differed: only two of Sabaudia's ten open long-distance and technical medallists raced in Kemer.

Full results from every round of the ranking competition are available on the SUP Cup Kemer 2026 page. Next on our SUP calendar are Santa Pola on 8 November and the Australian SUP Titles at Phillip Island.

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