With all the hype and tears to come out of the carnage that was the Battle Of the Paddle this year, there were actually some good vibe stories and one of them involved a team of Aussie paddlers - Team Lahui Kai.
This small but virtually unknown team is built 100% around a team of Aussie paddlers and is backed by SUP ATX RACING out of the USA. Every one of their team who competed came in the top ten in their respective classes at the BOP and both Lincoln Dews and Jayden Jensen narrowly missed out on getting podium spots.
The SUP ATX / Lahui Kai crew. From right to left: Brian Szymanski (shaper), Lincoln Dews- Aus. (4th in the Elite Race), John Becker (brand manager), Mick Di Betta -Aus (founder and trainer), Sondra Purser- Aus (9th), Jayden Jensen- Aus (10th) and Kelly Margetts - Aus (7th)
Lahui Kai team manager, Kelly Margetts (Quickblade/Lahui Kai) absolutely dominated the second qualifying heat this year, before going on to claim his fourth-straight Top 10 finish (photo: Andrew Welker)
Team Lahui Kai also came second behind Naish in the highly coveted Teams race.
This hasn't gone unnoticed by the international press: www.supracer.com/2014-battle-of-the-brands/
So I reckon they deserve a bit of recognition down here.
Now with the Australian National SUP titles unfolding in QLD we see these names pop up again with Lincoln 2nd and Kelly 9th in the Open Technical and Sondra coming in 3rd, in the technical race. If their form continues we should also see their names come up again in the distance race.
Great to see a team of Aussies, almost unknown on the International circuit, doing so well both here and overseas.
Promotional video of the BOP event from Lahui Kai. Some good action of the starts!
Great vid. The results this team are getting are unreal, the coach is clearly bang on with his methods. The boards are perfect for BOP
Quite achievers for sure.New boards seem to go prety fast.So did the old ones for that matter
Select to expand quotemickeyb said..
AA. Will the boards be at Merimbula to have a crack on?
Yeah thats the plan Mickey. All the new Brian Szymanski boards land later this week.
If all goes to plan we should also have them for our Demo at Balmoral Beach this Sunday
Brian talks about the new 12'6 Race in detail....
This was the teams board of choice at the Salt Creek BOP and the board that placed them so well.
