I’ve been living in Nottingham this last month or so getting ready for GB team selection. It’s a paradise for hole kayaking and a perfect place to learn, develop & innovate.
This is the video we made exploring what’s possible there & my approach to freestyle. How to enjoy it and succeed.
I hope you like the film,
Pringle
A glorious Autumn morning welcomed 140 competitors to Hurley
The Hurley Classic has been running for 24 years now, it’s one of freestyle’s most iconic events held in europe and best of all it’s held on a feature worthy of it’s reputation.
Hurley itself is a dynamic wave/ hole where all moves are possible, not always that easy to land but spectacular definitely. Jacko the event organiser has put a lot of work in this last few years to grow the event getting more and more top paddlers from around the World to come over and see if they can steal the classic crown from the locals!
This time Jacko excelled himself with nearly all of europe’s top paddlers coming over and even Stephen Wright from America.
The main idea is to unite the Uk paddling community with the rest of the ww community from around the World for an exciting, fun end of season showdown on an exciting feature to see who can provide the best spectacle.
This year we had quite a few events going on such as the Saturday GB team selection & night time super final, the epic boatercross, the Palm pin up photo contest and of course the main event the Classic on the Sunday. Jacko even threw a delicious banquet in the massive heated tent by the wave for all the competitors!
GB Selection
The saturday was for most people a warm up comp for the Sunday classic, but for the few who are trying to make the team to compete at the Europeans it was serious 
Because it’s a selection event for a hole contest, we were restricted during the heats to only use the hole gate which made for a very very tricky contest.
Best of the Brits was Palm/ Gb’s Alan Ward who battled his way to 3rd place in an extremely tough final showing the best of what the Thames Valley can produce. 2nd went to my Dagger team mate Tomasz Czaplicki and 1st with incredible rides was the french powerhouse Sebastian Devred with a incredible last ride !
Alan Ward
Tomasz Czaplicki – Poland
Sebastian Devred – France
In the women’s frances slalom superstar Nouria Newman won the super-final showing amazing adaptability and Palm’s Katya came in 4th.
Nouria Newman – France
Katya Kulkova – Russia
Full Results from the Selection (but not the super final) - http://gbfreestylekayak.com/etive/?p=440
Boatercross
This years boatercross was amped up a notch with an even bigger & steeper launch ramp followed by paddling around a marked out course across the flow of the wave whilst Rob Harris shot at you with a water canon then back again around the other buoy before a sprint to the finish all the while the two kayakers in body armour called ”8 Ballers” tried to stop you in your tracks.
In the men’s Palm’s Alan Ward added another great performance to steal the win ahead of Austria’s Marcel Bloder and Slovakia’s Peter Csonka after 5 gruelling rounds.
In the women’s there were no surprises as France’s Nouria Newman easily sailed to victory! ahead of Palm’s Anne Hübner, & Gb’s Paula Volkmer (not 100% on the womens 2nd & 3rd, so please correct me if i’m wrong.)
Nouria with her 1st place boater cross £!
Classic
In the classic you get 20 minutes with 10 people getting as many rides as they can. The aim is to do as many different moves as possible. The top 5 go though to a final with the full 3 gates open (it was on 2 for the rest of the weekend) to get 3 45 second rides with your best one counting to decide the winner.
GB’s top performers were Palm’s star performer Alan Ward who just missed the final in 6th followed by Doug Cooper and Palm’s Bren Orton.
For the super-final the lock keeper opened up the weir to give us a perfect retentive 3 gates which let us really see what some of the World’s best could do. It was very close as everyone had amazing rides but in the end Stephen Wright of the USA took the win with moves i’ve never seen stuck before on Hurley (pistol flips on demand), 2nd went to Spain’s Euro champ Quim Fontane Maso and 3rd to Frances Mathieu Dumoulin.
Quim Fontane Maso – Catalonia
Alan Ward – GB
Sebastian Devred – France
Mathieu Dumoulin – France
Event winner Stephen Wright – USA
Men’s Classic Podoum: Stephen 1st, Quim 2nd, Mathieu 3rd
In the women’s GB’s Claire O’hara had the ride of her life to take the win ahead of Slovakia’s NIna Csonkova in 2nd and Frances Marlene Devillez in 3rd.
Claire Ohara 1st, Nina Csonkova 2nd, Marlene Devillez 3rd
Finals Results: https://www.thamescanoes.com/classic/assets/2013/2013results-Finals.pdf
Mens Results: https://www.thamescanoes.com/classic/assets/2013/2013results-SeniorProMen.pdf
Women’s Results: https://www.thamescanoes.com/classic/assets/2013/2013results-SeniorProLadies.pdf
All info/ Photos: https://www.facebook.com/SasHurleyClassic?fref=ts
A big thank you must go to Jacko and all the volunteers who organised and ran the event, it was a true showcase of the top of our sport uniting all ages, sexes and abilities in a common love of kayaking! It was amazing having so much talent come over to the UK just for one event and I think everyone left feeling that it was a fun trip. Next year is the 25th edition so it’ll be a big one so you’d better get preparing for it
Event organiser Jacko closing the classic.
Palm’s Anne Hübner gives us her thoughts on the Classic:
Palm’s Anne Hübner’s impressions
It was my first time going to England for a kayak event. Usually before a kayak trip everybody is jealous but not this time. I got told about the bad and cold weather I will find in the UK and so on. And finally everybody was right – the weather during the event was cold and grey and the wave was only on two gates which wasn’t my favourite. Anyway, friday offered a beautiful sunny autumn-day and I got an awesome session on friday on three gates which was already worth to fly over. Great to see so much enthusiasm for Freestyle Kayaking in the UK and thanks to everybody who helped to make the Hurley Classic such a great event!”
Alan Ward
A few words from Local hero, Palm’s Alan Ward:
The SAS Hurley Classic was an incredible event with competitors coming from all over the world to invade a quiet and unsuspecting rural village in Berkshire at the weekend. Every year the organisers (Jacko and friends) step the competition up a notch, which included an incredible 8 ball boaterX competition, a huge heated marquee and the biggest banquet to date.
Most of the top ten men and women in the world competed over the weekend for the coveted title of SAS Hurley Classic Champion and the show did not disappoint with two floodlit finals and breathtaking heats all weekend on a variety of different gate set ups.
It’s one of the oldest competitions in freestyle kayaking and next year celebrates its 25th year, so with our help may the SAS Hurley Classic grow and grow!
Many thanks to Jacko and the team,
See you next year,
Pringle
See if you can find yourself in our photo dump below
I just put together a short video of our trip to Iceland. We did not film much at all!
But here is a little edit with all our useable shots put into something…
This months coaching dispatches will looks at eddy turns coming from the flow into calmer water.
We want to ensure that we can perform a wide eddy turn to get ourselves across a thick eddy line, to get ourselves safely at the bank and to not block the entrance to the eddy for the next person. Your friends won’t take too kindly to you being in the way at that must make eddy above the portage! In a nut shell I think there are 3 key things to bear in mind.
We must think ahead and plan. Our history of travel or momentum must be towards the eddy (blue line) and not downstream, hence traveling laterally across the river into the eddy (green line). This will prevent bouncing off the eddy line and carrying on down river (red line). The sketch below shows this history of travel.
As we cross the eddy line we need to ensure the boat is not knocked off line by the eddy line whilst keeping the kayak as flat as possible. Edging the boat now will only encourage the boat to turn super fast and spin on the spot and not penetrate into the eddy. There is also a difference between holding the kayak on line and performing a sweep stroke at the end line which again encourages the boat to spin on the eddy line.
As the boat starts to turn upstream, a forward paddle stroke on the inside of the turn will lengthen the turn further and give you support. You can follow this stroke on into a stern squeeze to control the end of the turn.
Good posture throughout is key, as the strength for your forward strokes, balance during the turbulence of the eddy line and your control of the stern squeeze comes from your core. Practice and varied environments is needed for robust skills but these ideas are a pathway to perfect eddy turns.
Our final training weekend before we all fly out to New Zealand was epic. As always it started with (for some) a horrible drive early in the morning, this time to get to the National White Water Course in Nottingham. We were also lucky enough to have Coach Dave back with us again after his enforced absence by work. We rocked up, put our game faces on and got warmed up for out first session of the weekend – a sprint session in our sprint formation. Many of us had been ill in the past month so we were a little concerned that this would have a negative effect on our performance. We needn’t have worried.
One of our favorites: Happy Cat Angry Cat. Only works if you make the noises
Keanu Reeves looks really cool when he does this…we don’t quite pull it off.
Flat Water Warm ups are important too.
The training we have been doing really showed up as we managed to knock a big lump of seconds off our time compared to earlier in the year. The raft looked and felt strong and the ladies flew down the course.
Everyone is so in time.
Guns out!!
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!
After the main part of the session was over we had a go at practicing what we would do if we snap a paddle during a run. Last year in Lipno at the R6 Euro Champs we were amazed at one of the men’s team who snapped a paddle but recovered their spare and only missed one stroke!! So we had a go! This sort of thing is really important for a team to practice. If we know what is going to happen we wont panic and we will have a better chance of not letting it damage our race. After a go on the water we had a go on dry land!
See the paddle tied in the back, Just in case…
I think all this training has made the girls go a bit crazy…they don’t even realise they arn’t on the water…Awkward!! – Bry goes for the switch.
We then had a stop for feeding time and then onto Slalom. Dave, Nerys and Bry set us a problem solving session. Problem was it was a tough problem and we took a long time to solve it! Slalom is a discipline that has such an impact. It can be really positive, but it can, if you let it, lead to frustration and negativity. But we are a close knit team and despite some lows we always manage to find the positive and come away feeling good about a session. This session was tough on our brains but we conquered it, solved the problems and nailed the run.
Walking and talking the course. Thinking about the problem we need to solve.
Doing everything we can to make the boat go where we want.
Finishing on a high and a pep talk by Coach Dave.
We ended the day in the most brilliant way we could. We had decided to do a flat water endurance from Nottingham down river to HPP. Except just as we got the raft on the water, the heavens opened. And I mean they OPENED! Along with the rain came a HUGE thunder and lightning storm. This made it so exciting for us racing down the river, but I’m sure poor Coach Dave was having other thoughts as he ran alongside us on the river bank!! I’m sure he doesn’t realise what he signed up to sometimes! But the Raft felt incredible, strong and one big unit. We were all pretty broken at the end. A good sign that we gave it our all.
Proud to represent Great Britain.
We went back for a yummy dinner and chat with Etienne-Olympic-God-Stott about tapering and planning our training week in NZ. Then we all went to bed. Cream Crackered.
It was a bright and early get up the next morning for some more Slalom. This time it was a race course session with 12 gates – 4 upstream gates and 8 downstream gates. We had some good runs and it was a positive session.
Making big moves requires alot of effort – Nezza hanging out the raft!
All eyes on the next gate.
Boofing to keep the nose up so we don’t get full of water and slowed down.
Why can’t Nottingham HPP have an escalator?!!!
Slalom is a real lesson in team work. Each person has a different ‘eye’ on the course so everyone has to come to some agreement of how we want to make a certain move. But the main thing is having full commitment to moving yourself around the poles. This can result in some interesting acrobatics some times!!
Punting off the side/rocks is not illegal. It can give you just the push you need
Getting around a pole means moving around the raft. Also being on the upstream side in a hole means to need to move your bum as well, otherwise EVERYONE gets wet!
Team talks. Having 7 people with 7 different ideas can be tricky, but it is important to listen to everyone and then come up with a plan.
This is why we have to do so much core strength work!!
Driving out of a move with speed.
Bry asked us all to go and get a watch and Nezza came back wit ha matching one to Bry! I think their partnership has now reached a telepathic level!!
Our second and final session of the weekend was Head to Head. And lucky enough for us the lovely GBR Masters Men’s team were on hand! We did 4 H2H races with an upstream pole to go around (to give them a fighting chance 
) in the middle of the course. We beat them on 3 of the 4 runs (they did some ‘illegal maneouvering’ on the 4th) and they won the 4th. It was fantastic. Nothing like a bit of a battle to get everyone fired up!
Hill Sprints warm up…not sure how Nezza can smile :)
H2H Starts with a held start, then it is fastest wins.
It leads to some awesome battles…technically you are meant to be looking for ‘future water’ but often your future water happens to be the other teams boat/paddle/hand…
The one time the Masters got ahead of us…they look pretty angry. Well they were beaten by Women 3 times!! :)
The breakout round a pole in the middle of the course made it even more exciting!
The boys must have decided the pole wasn’t worth the effort :D
DONT LET THEM GET AWAY!
It’s alright, we didn’t :D
And that was it.
We are going to have the biggest contingent ever at this years World’s. The Senior Men and Women (that’s us), the Master’s Team, the Youth team and the Junior Team. It is going to be unbelievably exciting!
The next time we see each other all together will be for The 2013 World Rafting Chapionships in New Zealand. As a team we have never been fitter, stronger or hungrier than we are now to bring you all home some gold. Keep an eye on our Facebook Page GB Womens Raft Team or the Palm Facebook page for updates. WISH US LUCK!!
A MASSIVE thankyou must go to Palm for helping us get to this point. Without their support we wouldn’t look half as good as we do. They really are inspirational when it comes to promoting women in sport. Also thanks to our other sponsors 9Bar, Teva and Bamboo Clothing and Capita.
And another HUGE thankyou must go to our Partners, Husbands, Boyfriends, Children and families for all the support and encouragement. We won’t let you down.
Words by Fran Kohn-Hollins
Photos by the GB Womens Raft Team.
