160 paddlers at the Never Give Up Challenge at Surfers Paradise Knokke-Heist

Every year, many places around the world organise the "Never Give Up" day, an initiative of Belgian Alain Horiot from Knokke-Heist.

This year, for the first time ever, it also included a Challenge, which continued at Surfers Paradise.

None other than Mathieu Bonne came paddling along, but not without first giving all the participants a heart to heart....It was silent as he talked about his exploits, but also his failures... How he needed 2 attempts to swim down our coast, how he almost couldn't go any further at 400 m from the top of Mont Blanc, his Ironman exploit in the Canary Islands, Camp Waes... He motivated everyone to never give up, to believe in yourself and to do everything possible to reach your goal, no matter what others say or think about it.

Afterwards, all participants grabbed their surfboards and shot into the water.

Frank Vanleenhove: " we chose to paddle on a surfboard because this is the real challenge for all surfers. After all, if you want to surf a wave, first and foremost you have to overcome the surf. This in itself means you cannot give up, otherwise you will never be able to surf. Sometimes the waves are so big and powerful that you truly feel your arms deflate as you have to keep paddling to avoid being pushed back towards the beach. So you must never give up. Today there were no waves so all surfers had to choose a distance they were going to paddle arriving at Surfers Paradise. Quite a task, especially if you are not used to doing this. Not just for the arm muscles, you are also lying on your floating ribs and you have to keep your head as high as possible to look in front of you in such a way that your neck muscles are fairly tested. The bravest surfers opted for 2 km, the smallest for 400m, but it was nice to see that everyone made it to the finish line, without being for the fastest. Participating and persevering was the most important thing"

Alain Horiot: "I was very impressed by this event, and this was just the start...my goal is that soon the Never Give Up Day will be celebrated all over the world and that everyone both young and old will draw strength from it. I liked the fact that a ten-year-old boy told me he paddled for his parents because they were going through difficult times, and a lady told me very emotionally after paddling 2 km that she did it for her friend who was going through difficult times.

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