From the Glenwood Springs Post Independent (Dave Shively):
At Sunday’s conclusion to the championship — part of the fourth annual Rocky Mountain Surf Festival hosted at the park — Tefft had a far different concern. That is, how to give the 30-some stand-up paddlers who turned out for this year’s festival a surf event when the flow numbers were much closer to 2,600 cfs. Instead of the scheduled SUP-surf event, organizers opted for a “circleSUP” contest, where paddlers in three divisions (men’s, women’s and kids) were broken up into smaller groups of five paddlers or less for a short, sprint course routed around an upstream buoy, then through the park’s wave with two more turns in an S-shape after the wave. “It was like yesterday’s SUPcross race, but it was a better course,” said racer Mike Tavares. “There’s more turns and it’s more technical.”[…]
In the most exciting heat of the day, the women’s final, local Glenwood Springs paddler Brittany Parker — one of the few, if not only, locals participating in the weekend’s three events — made a run to pass river-SUP competition stalwarts Jenny MacArthur and Nikki Gregg, winners of Saturday’s SUPcross and downriver events, respectively. After some board jostling and contact, Parker fell behind. After judges adjusted the times according to the contact, Parker finished in second place behind Gregg. The 22-year-old, who instructs SUP lessons for the Glenwood Adventure Co., also took third place in Saturday’s SUPcross. Aspen’s Clark Tefft, 13, won the circleSUP kids division. And on the men’s side, Dan Gavere beat out Tavares again, repeating the result of Saturday’s heated SUPcross final.
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