The excitement begins before the start signal: a familiar champion on the entry list, a flag you want to cheer for. This year the stage is Sabaudia, Italy. The official registration figures—934 athletes from 59 nations—show the scale of the gathering.
The 2026 ICF SUP World Championships run from October 14 to 18. Registration gives a picture of the field; race lists tell you who actually starts and in which division. Let the numbers be the beginning of your viewing story.
A Lake Beside the Sea: Meet Sabaudia
About 90 km south of Rome, Sabaudia’s beaches and dunes sit beside Lago di Paola. The coastal lagoon offers a sheltered racing setting close to the sea. This is Italy’s first time hosting the ICF SUP World Championships.
The programme extends beyond sprint, technical and long distance to Junior and Masters divisions, inflatable events, children’s races and fun races. The overall registration figure is not the headcount of the elite Open divisions alone.
934 is a registration figure, not a discipline-specific start list or a count of finishers.
National Numbers: A Deep European Field
In the shared TotalSUP graphic, host Italy has the largest figure at 136, followed by Spain at 116 and Greece at 72. Hungary, Germany and Poland each show at least 50 registered athletes. That depth helps explain why the same flags can recur across the broadcast’s different divisions.
Keep the datasets separate. The TotalSUP graphic uses a total of 927. The organiser announced 934 athletes and 59 nations on October 10 and repeated those figures on October 12. These are not interchangeable datasets: the country figures below must not be treated as a breakdown of the official total of 934.
Country table: TotalSUP’s 927-athlete dataset. Registration counts are not national-team selections or medal rankings.
- Italy
- 136 athletes
- Spain
- 116 athletes
- Greece
- 72 athletes
- Hungary
- 53 athletes
- Germany
- 52 athletes
- Poland
- 50 athletes
- France
- 43 athletes
- Czech Republic
- 27 athletes
The Asian Field: Registration Is Not a Start List
Japan at 18, India at 15, Hong Kong at 12 and China at nine: these are the Asian registration figures in the TotalSUP graphic. Registration is not a headcount of actual starters, and one athlete may enter several disciplines. Country figures alone do not describe the field in a single Open division.
The graphic cannot identify each athlete, discipline or start time. Once you find someone to support, check the country code, division and heat beside the name. Preliminary registration and final race lists can differ; use the latest race page for starts and results.
Name → division → discipline → heat. Follow that order to find the race you want to watch.
- Japan
- 18 athletes
- India
- 15 athletes
- Hong Kong
- 12 athletes
- China
- 9 athletes
The Field Is Racing: A Fast Opening Day
The registration story is already becoming a racing story. On October 14, Mariecarmen Rivera clocked the fastest women’s sprint heat time of the day at 28.33 seconds. Home contender Cecilia Pampinella also advanced with a heat-winning 28.45.
Vadim Korobov recorded 23.24 in the men’s racing, while defending champions Sergio Cantoral and Aaron Sanchez won their respective heats. These are opening-day heat results, not medal-final results. Watching the field’s expectations meet its race-day form is part of the appeal.
Entry numbers describe the field’s breadth; heat results reveal its race-day form. Follow both to get more from the broadcast.
Take the Story into Today’s Racing
Before switching on, choose one or two athletes and a discipline to follow. Watch the start and final acceleration in sprint, buoy entry and exit speed in technical racing, and the leading group’s pace changes over long distance. The related 2025 champions guide below will help you learn the names.
Official coverage is on Planet Canoe’s YouTube channel. Full live and on-demand coverage is paid channel-member content, advertised at €9.99 per month. Check the actual price and terms on YouTube. Use the latest schedule for race times and broadcast sessions.