There are races you watch. And there are races that pull you in.

The duel between Carlos Arévalo and Messias Baptista in Palma was definitely the second kind.

Carlos won the Paddle Games in 2024. Messias won in 2025. Two world-class athletes, two champions of our event, facing each other in a race that somehow seemed determined to produce a moment worthy of both of them.

And it did.

What made it so special was that they attacked the race completely differently.

They came from opposite sides. They chose different turns. For much of the race, it was almost impossible to know who had made the right decision. Then, as they came out of their turns and started the charge towards the finish, their paths began to converge.

Closer and closer.

Both at full power. Neither giving an inch.

For a few seconds, everything became very simple: two athletes, one finish line.

They crossed with just centimetres between them.

It was spectacular.

But watching it again, what we love most about that race is that it captures so much of what we have been trying to create with Paddle Games.

When we started this project, we wanted to experiment. We wanted to take our sport closer to the public, put the athletes at the centre and create formats that allowed their personalities, skills and competitive instincts to come alive.

Sometimes that means changing something very simple.

In traditional sprint racing, the lane largely dictates the path. In Paddle Games, athletes have decisions to make. Different lines are possible. Different turns are possible. You can attack a race differently from the athlete next to you.

And suddenly, racing is not only about who can paddle fastest.

There is strategy. Risk. Instinct. Decision-making.

And uncertainty.

That uncertainty is important.

Sport is at its best when nobody quite knows what is going to happen next. When the crowd can see the story developing in front of them. When two athletes who have taken completely different routes suddenly find themselves converging on the same piece of water, with a finish line only metres away.

That was Carlos and Messias in Palma.

You could see the duel developing. You could feel the tension increasing. And then there was nothing left to analyse. Just two extraordinary athletes throwing everything they had at the finish.

This is also why we believe so strongly that our athletes have to be the heroes of our sport.

Formats matter. Presentation matters. Technology matters. Bringing racing into spectacular city-centre locations matters.

But ultimately, none of those things creates the magic.

Athletes do.

Give great athletes the right stage, give them freedom to race, bring people close enough to feel it, and then get out of the way.

Sometimes, they will give you something you could never have scripted.

Carlos Arévalo. Messias Baptista.

Two Paddle Games champions. Two different decisions to the race. One finish line.

And only a few centimetres between them.

Pure racing.

Pure Paddle Games.

Epic.

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📸 Photos: @wishanfg