Superhuman paddling - Mo Freitas at the Payette River Games

Mo Freitas has turned his attention to the river lately, and right off the back of this months win at the Payette River Games, he’s released a video showing just how cool the whole whitewater thing is.

Have you ever watched the Olympic whitewater competitions where paddlers have to navigate a course, going around markers, upstream, downstream and across the river in the fastest possible time? Imagine that on stand up paddleboards. With the likes of Mo Frietas paddling his heart out through the course.

Almost as incredible as the paddling itself, he won $10,000 in prize money! That’s huge for a stand up paddling event, with even big name races like the Molokai to Oahu race and even the now-cancelled Battle of the Paddle earning less than half that for a win! It’s so big in fact, that the $50,000 total prize money is the largest purse in stand up paddling history. Wait, there’s more! The Payette River Games included equal prize money for men and womens divisions right down to 10th place. In cash too. If the whitewater community can inject that kind of prize money into stand up paddling at an event like this, times are looking good for the sport. Could whitewater stand up paddling be the first ever discipline in this sport to be included in the Olympic Games?

It’s exciting stuff, and who better to show the world how it’s done than the Oahu based stand up paddler, Mo Frietas. Check his video of the event out, and expect to see more of this style stand up paddling in the future.