Connor Baxter and Fiona Wylde have made it a clean sweep for Team Starboard at the Gorge Paddle Challenge in Hood River, Oregon today.

Fiona, the three-time defending champ, was once again unstoppable as her home course turned on the downwind conditions. Fiona’s fourth-straight DD crown cemented her reputation as not only the Queen of Hood River but also one of the most-talented bump-riders in the sport.

The victory tops off a big year for the Starboard superstar, with Fiona claiming four victories in Europe before returning home to take over the reigns of the famous JET (Junior Elite Team) training squad in Hood River from Gorge Paddle Challenge founder Steve Gates.

Behind Fiona, the women’s top six was identical in both runs, with Annie Reickert edging out April Zilg and Amandine Chazot to finish runner-up while Jade Howson and Seychelle rounded out the top half a dozen as the conditions fired down the famed Columbia River Gorge.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B1SyYoZAkFd/

Interestingly, Fiona finally ditched her beloved All-Star and began using the Starboard Ace this year (the Ace is Starboard’s traditional downwind model), whereas Connor is still riding the All-Star.

But Connor’s return to the top of the Oregon podium, which he last claimed in 2016, was much tougher than his teammate’s.

Fresh off his gold medal performance at the Pan-Ams in Peru, Connor took the opening leg of the Double Downwinder before keeping defending champ Noic Garioud within his sights on the second. Noic was quickest on the second run but the former world number one narrowly held on to win the overall by just 17 seconds.

Last year’s runner-up and Noic’s fellow New Cal wunderkind Clement Colmas took third this year as the young guns stepped up.

Connor and journeyman Josh Riccio were the only “men” in the top seven who are older than 21, with 16-year-old Keoni Sulpice from Tahiti and French duo Tom Auber and Alex Bicrel joining Noic and Clement at the pointy end of the field. While Connor and Noic were in a field of their own, every other position within the top nine finishers changed hands between the first and second runs.

Connor’s victory is his first major win of the season outside of the Pan-Ams, and it cements the Hawaiian’s reputation as the G.O.A.T. after a string of uncharacteristic misses in the past 18 months. The result also keeps the young guns at bay for at least one more season…

But everyone was somewhat upstaged by a couple of other young names, with giant-killing foil brothers Jeffrey and Finn Spencer finishing both of the eight-mile (13km) downwind runs about 15 minutes faster than the race boards.

Jeffrey narrowly held off his younger brother to claim the foil title, while Titouan Galea joined Noic and Clement in celebrating New Caledonian paddling by claiming third ahead of Austin Kalama Trent Carter and Paul Jackson.

There were just 27 competitors who completed the elite men’s Double Downwinder, a sharp drop from previous years. While there were several big names missing from Hood River this year, much of that drop coincides with the rise of a foiling division that saw 20 starters this year. It’ll be interesting to see if events such as the Gorge and Molokai move the foil race to a separate day in order to stem the bleeding in the race board divisions.

Here are the full results from the Hood.

Women’s Double Downwinder

#	Athlete	#1	#2	Total	Nation	Brand	Division
1	Fiona Wylde	1:01:18	1:01:25	2:02:43	USA	Starboard	Open
2	Annie Reickert	1:04:02	1:03:14	2:07:16	USA	NSP	Open
3	April Zilg	1:04:15	1:04:15	2:08:29	USA	ONE	Open
4	Amandine Chazot	1:04:48	1:04:25	2:09:13	France	Sunova	Open
5	Jade Howson	1:06:34	1:05:47	2:12:20	USA	SIC	Junior
6	Seychelle	1:07:07	1:06:50	2:13:58	USA	SIC	Open
7	Yuka Sato	1:08:19	1:07:43	2:16:02	Japan	Sunova	Open
8	Lara Claydon	1:08:06	1:09:26	2:17:32	USA	Rogue	Open
9	Kalia Alexiou	1:11:08	1:07:05	2:18:13	USA	unknown	Open
10	Stephanie Shideler	1:09:53	1:10:21	2:20:14	USA	Infinity	Masters
11	Abby Baker	1:11:49	1:10:40	2:22:29	USA	404	Junior
12	Kimberly Barnes	1:12:36	1:10:53	2:23:29	USA	Flying Fish	Masters
13	Jenn J Lee	1:11:34	1:13:41	2:25:15	USA	NSP	Open
14	Maddie Miller	1:11:53	1:13:30	2:25:24	USA	Flying Fish	Open
15	Tamlyn Böhm	1:13:13	1:12:13	2:25:26	USA	ONE	Open
16	Shannon Bell	1:13:34	1:14:07	2:27:42	Canada	Starboard	Masters
17	Erika Benitez	1:16:17	1:13:23	2:29:41	Mexico	Brawner	Open
18	Siri Schubert	1:18:38	1:18:53	2:37:31	Switzerland	SIC	Masters
19	Kira Buchanan	1:21:13	1:23:10	2:44:23	USA	Naish	Junior
20	Adela Umannova	1:23:15	1:24:18	2:47:33	Czech	JP	Open
21	Mary Howser	1:24:08	1:23:40	2:47:48	USA	Starboard	Open
22	Karen Kennedy	1:22:57	1:25:58	2:48:55	USA	Infinity	Masters

Men’s Double Downwinder

#	Athlete	#1	#2	Total	Nation	Brand	Division
1	Connor Baxter	0:54:47	0:55:14	1:50:00	USA	Starboard	18-39
2	Noic Garioud	0:55:19	0:54:58	1:50:17	New Cal	Sunova	17U
3	Clement Colmas	0:55:35	0:55:39	1:51:14	New Cal	Starboard	18-39
4	Keoni Sulpice	0:56:27	0:55:23	1:51:50	Tahiti	Starboard	17U
5	Josh Riccio	0:56:18	0:56:36	1:52:55	USA	F-One	18-39
6	Tom Auber	0:56:37	0:56:18	1:52:56	France	Fanatic	18-39
7	Niuhiti Buillard	0:57:15	0:57:41	1:54:56	Tahiti	SIC	18-39
8	Alexandre Bicrel	0:58:43	0:57:41	1:56:24	France	NSP	18-39
9	Martin Letourneur	0:58:23	0:58:37	1:57:00	France	Hobie	18-39
10	Lincoln Dews	0:59:14	0:58:11	1:57:25	Australia	DEEP	18-39
11	Boris Jinvresse	0:59:27	0:59:04	1:58:31	France	Sunova	18-39
12	Martin Vitry	1:01:56	0:57:47	1:59:43	France	SIC	18-39
13	Tuhiti Tirao	1:00:44	0:59:35	2:00:19	Tahiti	425	18-39
14	Tyler Bashor	1:00:33	0:59:51	2:00:24	USA	Infinity	17U
15	David Leao	1:02:02	1:00:59	2:03:01	Brazil	SIC	18-39
16	Ryohei Yoshida	1:01:10	1:02:26	2:03:36	Japan	Sawarna	18-39
17	Slater Fleck	1:01:27	1:03:02	2:04:29	USA	SIC	17U
18	Eri Tenorio	1:03:09	1:03:06	2:06:15	Brazil	Flying Fish	18-39
19	Rai Taguchi	1:03:38	1:03:09	2:06:47	Japan	SIC	17U
20	Jean Letourneur	1:05:55	1:01:56	2:07:51	France	free agent	18-39
21	Leif Bergstrom	1:04:47	1:03:56	2:08:43	USA	free agent	18-39
22	Steve Miller	1:04:58	1:04:59	2:09:57	USA	Flying Fish	40-49
23	Evan Gerbrecht	1:06:02	1:06:40	2:12:43	Canada	ONE	18-39
24	Jake Graham	1:07:33	1:07:15	2:14:48	USA	Flying Fish	18-39
25	Vincent Goyat	1:11:46	1:08:05	2:19:52	USA	425	40-49
26	Zach Rounsaville	1:12:12	1:12:01	2:24:13	USA	Infinity	18-39
27	Tony Galang	1:15:52	1:12:55	2:28:47	USA	F-One	50+
28	Guilherme Dos Reis	0:59:38	DNS	3:59:38	Brazil	SIC	18-39
29	Darrell Horton II	1:17:45	DNS	4:17:45	USA	SIC	40-49
30	Dan Gamsky	1:29:10	DNS	4:29:10	-	-	50+

Foil Double Downwinder

#	Athlete	#1	#2	Total
1	Jeffrey Spencer	0:41:17	0:39:31	1:20:48
2	Finn Spencer	0:41:20	0:39:45	1:21:05
3	Titouan Galea	0:45:00	0:41:41	1:26:41
4	Austin Kalama	0:45:28	0:41:32	1:26:59
5	Trent Carter	0:44:40	0:43:22	1:28:01
6	Paul Jackson	0:48:20	0:43:09	1:31:29
7	Tomoyasu Murabayashi	0:52:02	0:44:09	1:36:11
8	Mateo Ell	0:50:36	0:49:14	1:39:50
9	Armie Armstrong	0:51:45	0:54:29	1:46:14
10	Mamadou Romuald	0:53:55	0:53:29	1:47:24
11	Steve Walker	0:57:33	0:50:05	1:47:38
12	Christian Bradley	0:58:41	0:54:39	1:53:20
13	Shep Nelson	1:04:54	1:01:32	2:06:26
14	TJ Gulizia	1:03:07	1:06:00	2:09:07
15	Lee Mclean	1:07:09	1:06:40	2:13:49
16	Mark Raaphost	DNS	0:48:25	4:48:25
17	Bobo Gallagher	0:53:35	DNS	4:53:35
18	Fred Bonnef	DNS	0:59:47	4:59:47
19	Rod Parmenter	1:02:10	DNS	5:02:10

 
raw results available on PaddleGuru