Situated in Egmont,Bc. Skookumcuck is a series of tidal rapids that form on certain tides to produce what is probably the glassiest wave in the world. It’s been my dream from an early age to surf skook and this year I finally got the chance.
The waves form when the tide flows rapidly over a seemingly flat piece of water, as both the water speed and volume of water increase a reef is revealed and the wave starts to form. The first wave is the main event but much fun can be had wrestling with the boils, whirlpools and crashing waves downstream.
I’ve been working hard to progress my wave freestyle over the past few years. Check out the video I made of me and the Demshitz boys throwing down in Canada.
I have never paddled a wave that is as smooth or as nice and can’t wait to head back.
We’ve spent the last week paddling, training and enjoying Salt in Catalonia. After the Natural Games we didn’t know where best to go to to train for the next week. Quim Fontane Maso (European Champion) suggested to come to his home spot in the city of Salt.
The hole which Quim and his Dad built themselves has been perfect for training – not too easy, some tricky aspects but gives some good pop and good competion practice. Also paddling with Quim & Nuria in their home spot really pushed us and was good fun too.
The area has been stunning from the medievel village Besalu where we stayed to, the sights of Girona and Barcelona. We’ve seen buildings by Gaudi, paintings by Dali and Picasso and bridges from Eiffel but I think what I liked best of the area was the crystal clear water and deserted beaches…rest days were not hard to fill here! With such good kayaking, company & scenary it’s been a joy to train here.
Quim, Nuria ,Teresa (mum) & Dad (Joaquim) were amazing to us – I’ve never had such good hospitality – from housing us, to showing us all the best bits of the area to inviting us to particpate in there floodlight night session and mass river descent the next day. They were fantastic.
Now it’s time for us to leave and head to Sort where we have the next competition looming, sorry to leave what’s been my favourite spot of the year but looking forward to getting another chance to compete.
Last weekend I was given the opportunity to show off our sport to thousands of kids across the UK. Live. No pressure…
WILD is Saturday morning TV programme which aims to show kids the wonders of the outdoors and get kids off the sofa. There’s an awesome mix of wildlife, activities and adventures; each episode being themed around a certain environment. This week’s episode was to be river themed, coming live from Cardiff International White Water.
My adventure started with an early morning drive to Geneva airport from my base at this time of year of the French Alps. A quick ‘nip’ over the channel to Bristol airport where I was collected by one of the WILD team and driven to Cardiff for the first of my rehearsals. On arrival I was amazed to see CIWW totally taken over by broadcast vans, cameras and… hang on… that’s a monitor lizard! I was introduced to the crew, presenters and wildlife who were all incredibly nice (including the monitor lizard… I even gave him a stroke!).
After unwrapping my new Jitsu 5.5 which had been kindly delivered by Palm, I got it outfitted to perfection within minutes with the new outfitting – awesome stuff! My boat was then rigged up with a GoPro with a big RF transmitter unit and battery strapped behind the backband to allow them to stream the footage live. Then it was time to rehearse… the extra weight was a little awkward but the Jitsu is soooo good! I can now claim to be the first person to have snapped one of this BBC team’s GoPro arms though. Ooops! Sorry guys…
After a very short night in a swanky hotel, we were back at the course at 5.15am ready for dressed rehearsals. Eels, otters and lizards in place, white water course and FlowRider on, it was time for the young live audience to see what was in store. It’s important to know when to cheer, scream or dance!
All of a sudden it was 8.55am and we were all stood in position waiting to go live to the nation.
I was introduced as their celebrity guest and after the lizard had done his thing, they gave me a dramatic and linguistically interesting build-up (“superhero of the water”… “sorceress of the white water”…). After paddling down for an interview in the eddy I was set off to do a minute long demo before the presenter got in a duckie and paddled down the course with me.
I had one final part to play in the final wind-up of the show. As I floated into position I noticed the inflatable crocodile was still surfing in the hole. I seized the opportunity and wrestled with it behind the presenters. See if you can spot it!
This was one of the most outrageously fun things I’ve been a part of for years (and I’m lucky enough to do some very fun things!). It was a real honour to be an ambassador for our sport… I hope this show inspires some youngsters to come along and give paddling and freestyle a try!
p.s. The FlowRider is also AMAZING. When you next head to Cardiff; definitely give it a whirl!
The Natural Games is a big sports and music festival held over four days in Millau, France. Every day there are competitions and activities in all sports powered by Nature: Kayak Freestyle, Kayak Boatercross, Kayak big air ramp, MTB Downhill, MTB Slopestyle, Paragliding, Climbing, Dragon Boating and Slack Line. Then every evening different artists and DJ’s play to huge crowds. The event draws in over 60,000 spectators over the 4 days!!! It’s a really good atmosphere with so many people coming together here competing, enjoying their sports and watching all the action and music.
Me & Katya were here in 2010 and had a great time, I even took the win which isn’t easy at these french events (the standard is very high) so we were very happy to be invited here again this year!
First up in the kayaking was the Friday evening Boatercross, everyone was given Dagger Mamba’s to use so we were all in the same boat making it fair. We raced just as it was getting dark and the really big crowds were arriving for the music to kick off. We raced in fours with the top 2 going through. Both me and Katya made it through the first round, but got eliminated in the next, racing was very brutal with fierce fighting, paddle’s clashing and blood being spilled (literally in my case: my finger got a bit sliced open by someone’s paddle blade all shown on live french TV. From the freestylers Quim Fontane Maso, Mathieu Dumoulin and Tim Biere’nard lasted the longest providing some fantastic entertainment as Quim & Tim’s ferocious battle eventually knocked them both out but none of the freestylers made it to finals. In the end the final was all down to serious racers and Raphael Thiebaut took the win.
That evening all the invited athletes from the different sports got a taste of stardom as we were all introduced on the main stage to a huge sea of Frenchies
Saturday was the day of battle for us Freestylers. The number of paddlers here is amazing, there are so many kids kayaking (& adults) and generally the standard is high. There were so many competitors in fact that it would take a whole day of solid competing to get through the Cadets, Juniors, C1, Womens & Men’s Prelims, 1/4′s, and Semi’s.
Katya paddled very well in prelims to comfortably make the Women’s Finals in 2nd behind 2xEuropean Champion Marlene Devillez.
For us men we had a real marathon having prelims, quarters and semi’s all in the same day. We had Mat Dumoulin 2x Euro Champ, Quim Fontane Maso current Euro Champ, & Junior World cup winner Sebastian Devred all here, meaning the standard is like Worlds level. The hole here is quite unusual to me, it’s narrow meaning you have to land moves in a very short area in order to stick them. The prelims and quarters I felt good and had good moves but wasted too much time flushing but enough to get through easily, in the Semi’s I hit a great ride scoring 1510 to take 2nd behind Sebastian Devred.
Finals came the next day and the level didn’t disappoint with Junior girls even having high scores with Nuria Fontane taking the win, then in Junior Boys Thomas Richard, a local paddler who really impressed me easily won too. In the women’s I thought Katya had it, she paddled great but judges said Marlene won. Katya (& I) was happy anyway with her getting 3 solid rides.
They have a different judging system here which means sometimes it’s a bit hard for us to work out what scores what, it rewards lots of linking of moves and cartwheel based moves very highly. It does seem a bit softer on the actual moves but overall it’s fair (just a bit random for us who are used to the international system).
In the Men’s final I didn’t have my best day coming 5th out of 7, I just didn’t feel in my usual groove but guess that’s the way it goes. The scores were incredibly high as was the standard. Mathieu, Quim & Sebastian were on fire getting great rides and incredible scores. It was close but in the end Mat took the win with a huge score of 2350!!! Sebastian was 2nd with 1900ish and Quim 3rd with 1790ish.
We came here primarily for training and to see how we’re doing in our preparations for Worlds since their were quite a few of our main rivals here. It’s turned out to be a very good place to train, this hole is unlike anywhere we usually paddle which has made us work on our weakness’s, the french paddlers are very good and really know this kind of features so we got a good taste of Worlds level competing with paddlers on their best.
I’m not too disappointed with my result, training was going well and it’s good to get these blips out of the way before the big events Before here training & competitions had felt like they’re going well on the way to Worlds, and coming 5th here I discovered a few weakness’s and areas I need to improve with plenty of time to solve them. We have a new regime for me and i’m looking forward to seeing how i can improve before the event in Sort, Spain in a few weeks where quite likely we’ll see the same main rivals + Dane Jackson all of us fighting for good prize money so I imagine it’s going to be tough
The festival overall was great to be a part of, they put on a fantastic show, it’s also good to see that in France the Kayaking gets quite a bit of attention and coverage from the media and the public. We enjoyed being here again! Big thanks to the organisers and all participants for making it what it was!
Check out the videos below to get a feel of the event:
Ekstremsportveko or Extreme Sports Week is an international extreme sports and music festival held annually in the small town of Voss in Norway. For 7 days athletes from all over the world converge in the small mountain town to compete for dominance in their chosen sport. It is also a great chance to meet new friends from different disciplines and catch up with old ones.
Women’s raft slalom
The first race for me was the rafting race. This year it was a two part race, slalom first, then head to head. My team won the slalom by a decent margin then narrowly missed out on winning the head to head but as slalom was worth more points we took the overall victory.
Even the safety guys are having a good time
Rafter X final between team Germany and the Voss Rafting Senter (VRS) boys. Team VRS had won the slalom and it was a battle to the end in the raft cross. It was a Le Mans running start and Germany got the start perfect. VRS was chasing them the whole way down the river all that was left was the last rapid. Germany went right and VRS went left they had 200 m left till the finish line and Germany got forced into some rocks allowing VRS to take the victory good work boys!
Voss Rafting boys taking the lead
The groupies cheering on team Voss
Winners!!
This is my 3rd year at Extremsportveko and each veko I try to enter a new competition that I haven’t competed in before. This year my two new competitions were the Amazing Raft Race and the Brandseth Teams Race. and we came first good times
River boarding head to head
Our Amazing Raft Race team, I don’t know why Jordie is so sad about winning this competition!
The Amazing Raft Race is not such a serious race as the slalom and raft cross races. The teams have anywhere between 4 and 7 people of varying abilities, the only prerequisite being that you have rafted down the section once before. The race has a series of clues and challenges, you have to solve the clue to find the next challenge. This year the challenges included taking on the kids high ropes course to find our first clue, some throw bagging target practice, some river swimming, rafting a rapid on the bottom of the upside down raft, and jumping off a bridge, all accompanied by a blow up pool toy.
Finally finishing the race after stopping half way down when my friend got pinned in an undercut wall in the racecourse. We evacuated her no worries and she is much better now. Thanks to the veko team for getting her out safe and also thanks for giving me a second chance to race as I thought I was disqualified for quitting my race to help my friend.
After the individuals race on the Brandseth there is also a teams race. Normally the teams race is on a much longer section and includes some big slides and also a portage but this year due to low river levels we raced on a shorter racecourse. I raced in a team with two English girls Sandra and Jenny and we were the only all girls team in the competition. We came 10th overall which we were pretty happy with then at the prize giving we were surprised to be called up to receive 2nd place in the women’s category and a team that had two girls, Marianne and Katrina, and one guy Mathias, won first place in the Women’s category.
Results:
1st in Rafting Slalom and Rafter X
1st in Amazing Raft Race
1st in Women’s River Boarding
3rd in Brandseth Downhill
2nd in Women’s Teams Race (but first and last really because we were the only women’s team)
all shown on live french TV. From the freestylers Quim Fontane Maso, Mathieu Dumoulin and Tim Biere’nard lasted the longest providing some fantastic entertainment as Quim & Tim’s ferocious battle eventually knocked them both out but none of the freestylers made it to finals. In the end the final was all down to serious racers and Raphael Thiebaut took the win.
Before here training & competitions had felt like they’re going well on the way to Worlds, and coming 5th here I discovered a few weakness’s and areas I need to improve with plenty of time to solve them. We have a new regime for me and i’m looking forward to seeing how i can improve before the event in Sort, Spain in a few weeks where quite likely we’ll see the same main rivals + Dane Jackson all of us fighting for good prize money so I imagine it’s going to be tough 
