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After Thursday’s dramatic SS1 races, attention at the 2026 Paddle Europe Ocean Racing Championships now turns to the SS2 competition, with three more European titles set to be decided on Saturday in Brest.

A total of 49 crews across the three Mixed categories that meet the minimum requirement of five participating nations. Senior Mixed brings together 24 crews from eight countries, Junior Mixed features 16 crews from six countries, while U23 Mixed has now reached nine crews representing exactly five nations.

The confirmation of five nations in U23 Mixed is significant. It means the category now also qualifies for European title status. Together with the eight titles decided in Thursday’s SS1 races, Brest 2026 is therefore set to award 11 official European titles in total.

Other SS2 categories will also race on Saturday, but do not carry European Championship title status.

SS1 champions look for more success

Saturday will also provide an opportunity for several of Thursday’s SS1 champions to add another European crown.

Bernardo Pereira. The Portuguese paddler produced one of the performances of the championships by winning both the U23 classification and the overall Men’s SS1 race, will now team up with Sara Sotero. Rosie Edwards, is also back. After winning the U23 Women’s title and finishing as the fastest woman overall in SS1, the British paddler will partner Ryan Lark in the Senior Mixed race.

There are several other opportunities for a championship double. Pierre Vilella, Thursday’s Senior Men’s European champion, partners France’s Margaux Bouteloup, while Senior Women’s champion Judit Vergés Xifra will race with Jorge Vila del Rosario.

In Junior Mixed, both individual SS1 champions are also back in doubles. Italy’s Leonardo Candela will race with Marilù Brambilla, while Portugal’s Constança Frazão joins Junior Men’s SS1 silver medallist Pedro Moreira.

Henot and Delrieux arrive with World Championship credentials

The strongest reference for Saturday’s Senior Mixed race may come from the 2025 World Championships, where Thaïs Delrieux and Hector Henot finished second overall and were the leading European crew, behind South Africa’s Matthew Fenn and Saskia Hockly. The same French combination is back together in Brest and will inevitably start among the main favourites.

Their opposition, however, is particularly deep.

The 2025 Worlds saw Walter Bouzan and Judit Vergés Xifra finish fourth, while Chloe Bunnett and Jorge Vila were sixth. This time Spain has reshuffled those combinations: Bouzan will race with Bunnett, while Vergés partners Vila.

That creates an intriguing Spanish battle. Bouzan and Bunnett both took silver in their respective Senior SS1 categories on Thursday, making their new combination particularly interesting, while Vergés arrives as the newly crowned Senior Women’s European champion.

France adds another major threat with Pierre Vilella and Margaux Bouteloup. Vilella came into Brest as the reigning Senior Men’s World Champion and confirmed his form by winning the European SS1 title on Thursday. Bouteloup, meanwhile, was part of the third-placed U23 Mixed crew at the 2025 Worlds, alongside Tanguy Cattelle.

And then there is Edwards. Her current form makes the British crew of Rosie Edwards and Ryan Lark difficult to overlook. Both competed in Mixed SS2 at last year’s Worlds with different partners, and Edwards now arrives from the strongest possible SS1 result in Brest.

U23 Mixed gains title status – and Spain brings depth

The U23 Mixed race has become one of the most interesting additions to Saturday’s championship programme.

Nine crews from Belgium, France, Spain, Great Britain and Italy are entered, bringing the category to the five-nation threshold required for a European title.

Spain brings four crews and several athletes with significant recent experience.

At the 2025 World Championships, Sara Mengual and Pablo St Mary were second in the U23 Mixed classification, while Margaux Bouteloup and Tanguy Cattelle took third.

The partnerships have changed for Brest. Mengual now races with Josep Cifre Pascual, who took bronze in Thursday’s U23 Men SS1 race, while Cattelle partners France’s Claire Dewaste. Spain also combines Lara Cellier with Francisco Quintana Labarta. Cellier and Cifre raced together at the 2025 Worlds, where they finished ninth in U23 Mixed, but will now compete in separate boats.

Great Britain’s Toby Peyton-Jones and Olivia Geddes offer something different: continuity. They raced together at the 2025 Worlds and finished eighth in the U23 Mixed classification, and return as the same partnership in Brest.

With several of the leading 2025 combinations now redistributed into new crews, the U23 race looks considerably less predictable.

Junior champions meet again in SS2

The Junior Mixed race contains another fascinating rematch from both the World Championships and Thursday’s SS1 competition.

Spain’s Julian St Mary and Andrea Colmard Jiménez are together again. The pair finished fourth in Junior Mixed at the 2025 World Championships, while Jiménez came to Brest as the reigning U18 World Champion in SS1.

But Thursday changed the picture.

Portugal’s Constança Frazão defeated Jiménez to win the Junior Women’s European SS1 title, and she will now partner Pedro Moreira, silver medallist in Junior Men. That gives Portugal a crew containing two of Thursday’s standout Junior performers.

Italy presents another serious challenger in Marilù Brambilla and Leonardo Candela. Candela was exceptional in SS1, winning the Junior Men’s European title and finishing eighth among all male competitors, regardless of age.

The Junior start list also features strong French, Spanish, British and Swedish representation, with 16 crews from six countries making it one of Saturday’s largest championship fields.

A very different picture from the Azores in 2024

Saturday’s fields also illustrate how much the Mixed SS2 programme has changed since the previous European Championships in the Azores in 2024.

Two years ago, Inês Esteves and José Diogo Santos won the Mixed race ahead of two other Portuguese crews. In U23 Mixed, Joana Castanho and Mateus Luis won for Portugal, while Gabriela Diaz and Eduardo Fajardo of Spain took the Junior Mixed victory.

None of those winning combinations appears on Saturday’s start list. Azores S2 race was at the same time as SS1, preventing the main SS1 Start do double up. Now in brest the participation has expanded considerably. The 2024 Mixed fields were much smaller, while Brest will see 24 Senior, 16 Junior and nine U23 crews, with all three categories now meeting the five-nation requirement.

That guarantees new names at the top of the SS2 European standings and sets up a final day where recent World Championship form, Thursday’s SS1 performances and new partnerships will all collide.

For Henot and Delrieux, it is an opportunity to turn last year’s World silver into European gold. For Vilella, Vergés, Edwards, Candela and Frazão, Saturday offers the chance to leave Brest with success in both SS1 and SS2.

And after the tight finishes and surprises of Thursday’s individual races, the final three European titles of Brest 2026 appear far from decided.

Start List and results here