Who will be this year’s SUP Man of the Year? If you know of a SUP superstar, hurry up and start spreading the word!  Open nominations and voting will officially end tomorrow, Thursday night July 19, 2012 at 11:59 pm PST.

This year the process of selecting the “SUP Man of the Year” will first include an open round / nomination period. Anyone can nominate a SUP man, and bring awareness to some names of SUP superstars who are making the stand up paddle world a better place! To nominate someone, simply go to the Supconnect Facebook page and click on the SUP Man Nominations App. Once there, enter the name and photo of the person you are nominating along with a description of why he deserves be the 2012 SUP Man of the Year. The top 5 nominees with the highest number of votes and the most convincing descriptions will move on to join the top elite athletes in phase two.

But time is short since the open nominations and voting will officially end tomorrow, Thursday night July 19, 2012 at 11:59 pm PST. By Friday morning around 9am PST, there will be a big reveal as to who will join the pre-seeded elite athletes in the SUP Man of the Year final phase and voting will begin.

The second phase of the SUP Man of the Year contest will include the names of the pre-seeded elite athletes along with the top 5 stand up paddlers from the open nominations. They will all be featured again via the SupConnect Facebook page and will have beautiful photos, awesome biographies and a place for you to vote for your overall favorite in 2012.

The ultimate SUP Man of the Year winner will be determined based upon several points of criteria. They are: ambassadorship, grassroots involvement in Stand up Paddle, performance, and public voting.

In 2010 Chuck Patterson was the SUP Man of the Year and in 2011 Antoine Delpero claimed the title. Who do you think will win 2012? Will he be from this group of pre-seeded men or one of the 5 open nominees?

1. Chase Kosterlitz
2. Bart de Zwart
3. Sean Poynter
4. Justin Cook
5. Chris Curray
6. Colin McPhillips
7. Antoine Delpero
8. Leco Salazar
9. Aaron Napoleon
10. Jamie Mitchell
11. Travis Grant
12. Kai Lenny
13. Eric Terrien
14. Anthony vela
15. Rob Rojas
16. Danny Ching
17. Connor Baxter
18. Dan Gavere
19. Ernest Johnson
20. Chuck Patterson

**This is a preliminary list of pre-seeded athletes and additional pre-seeded men may be added.