Shuri Araki storms to overall victory at the Busan SUP Open with a completely dominant performance in the Distance 

After posting a solid 2nd place finish in the sprints on Saturday, the 18 year old phenom from Okinawa, Shuri 'Shrimpy' Araki knew what he had to do on Day 2 - it was simple, just win. And that he did and then some.

Blasting off the stuff with what seemed like almost double the stroke cadence of anyone else, he separated from the pack almost immediately and consistently grew his lead through the 9km race to take an impressive victory.

By the time he finished, he had built a full minute and a half lead on the rest of the pack which was led by the great Dane, Christian Andersen who finished in 2nd, with Aaron Sanchez from Mallorca rounding out the top 3.

While Shrimpy and Christian are therefore tied for points, the tiebreaker for this event was established as the distance, awarding the overall win to Shrimpy, while validating Christian's position as one of the very best and well rounded paddlers in the world.

This Championship victory at the single flagship event for the 2024 season secures his #1 seed going into 2025, as Shrimpy will have a target on his back next year as the one to beat.

Check out the highlights and best moments from both days of the Busan SUP Open @appworldtour, @kapp_korea, and of course at www.appworldtour.com and stay tuned for the full event recap to be released shortly.

Duna Gordillo makes it a clean sweep on the final day of the Busan SUP Open to take distance and overall wins

Duna Gordillo fulfilled her headline position at the 2024 Busan SUP Open by taking victory in the distance race and overall for the Championship event. Leading off the start, she put together a smart race and maintained her lead throughout to take victory. However, the young Japanese talent, Baba Natsumi stayed with her the whole race to take an impressive 2nd place in her first ever APP World Tour event.

In 3rd place was Hirata Otono from Japan, who wrapped a great weekend for the Japanese team in Busan. Given that Hirata and Baba both secured the same points with 2nds and 3rds across the two days, it was Baba who secured 2nd place overall with the distance tie breaker.

Like Shrimpy, Duna now goes into the 2025 season as #1 seed following this Championship win with the target on her back for the leading ladies on the APP World Tour.

This year's unique 9km course framed the beautiful bay in front of Gwangalli Beach and consisted of 6x 1.5km laps, providing plenty of entertainment for the assembled crowds and a constant flow of position changes within the athlete packs, particularly in the Men: here there was a battle for 2nd - 6th between Christian Andersen, Aaron Sanchez, Arthur Arutkin, Fernando Serra and Antonio Morillo with the lead in this pack constantly changing.

Make sure to check out the full results, highlights and photos from both days of competition and stay tuned for more from the APP World Tour @appworldtour  @kapp_korea, and www.appworldtour.com

So that's a wrap from what was another incredible weekend of action in Busan. The APP's local partners KAPP once again put together a world class festival in celebration of this unique sport and lifestyle and continued to grow the platform for local athletes to step up and be counted on the world stage.

The future looks bright for the sport in Korea, as we witnessed another impressive showing of U14 and U16 youth, all passionate about the sport and the Tour after 3 spectacular years of this Busan SUP Open.

A big thank you to all the partners of the 2024 Busan SUP Open, an event that has transformed the beachfront of Gwangalli into a stand up paddle epicenter. We are grateful for the phenomenal work by KAPP for delivering another great event and we look forward to what the future holds.

The APP can't wait to get back to Korea in 2025 for an exciting new adventure as the country will remain a flagship stop of the Tour for the years to come. News on this stop and the announcement for the 2025 season is now scheduled to be made by the end of this month, so stay tuned to @appworldtour @kapp_korea  and www.appworldtour.com