Teva Mountain Games Vail, Colorado – Step 1: Steep Creek Championships

After arriving Monday night in the amazing little town 2445 m above sea level in the middle of Colorados Eagle County I had two awesome days getting ready for the steep creek competition at Homestake even higher up in the mountains. Having my first practice runs down the tricky steep section I quickly got an idea what it means to race in that altitude. Having nice practice runs I felt best prepared for the Steep Creek Championships on Thursday. My first run was pretty sweet till I entered the last pool, there I got turned around and went backwards over the last drop. Lucky me was able to roll and finish the first run at forth place. So the top five lady were supposed to do a second run – both counted. It was Adriene Levknecht (USA) in the lead with an incredible advance of seven seconds to the next placed Martina Wegman from the Netherlands and Nikki Kelly out of New Zealand. Trying to catch a place on the podium in the finals I didn´t really find into the race again and ended up forth. Adriene took home the 2000 dollars price money followed by Nikki and Martina. Lou Urwin from New Zealand was the only lady who did better in the second run than in the first but finally ended up fifth. Congrats to Adriene for her absolute superior time which would have placed her under the top 15 of the mens.

The first run of the mens class was dominated by Mike Dawson (NZL) beating the time of second placed Honza Lasko by three seconds followed by Jakub Nemec in third position, both from the Czech Republic.The mens kept fighting hard in the finals and the spectators got to see sweet lines as well as good carnage down the last drop “leap of faith”. In the end the top three didn´t give any chance to the following crowd and there was a almost unbelievable finish were both Honza and Mike ended up with exactly the same time after two runs. So they shared the first place at the podium and split the price money – Jakub stayed in third position and sent off Michele Ramazza (Italy) and Sam Sutton (NZL) to the places four and five.

Team Palm paddler James”Pringle” Bebbington had a hard time in the strong mens competitors field and ended up 31th.

Having a fun day out there yesterday, got to see smooth lines, hard crashes and carnage I´m excited about todays Freestyle competition in the heart of Vail.

Getting ready for freestyle WORLDS in Plattling

After making the German freestyle team for worlds 2011 in Plattling and due to the fact I haven´t been in a playboat since October last year I decided I have to get in some more practice rides before worlds. For this reason I moved in to the small community at the wave in Plattling and found some good companion in the British crew with Emily Wall, Sam Ward, James “Pringle” Bebbington, Katya Kulkova (I know you´re not British … but almost ;)) and for sure Martin Koll, Bartosz Czauderna and the Irish boys – Orky and Thomas. Working the whole day in the organization team for worlds I was dying for my workout – the evening session in the wave. Though the water level was pretty low most of the time I had great fun kayaking, lots of dark chocolate ice-cream and barbecue. But after playing in the same hole for about two weeks I´m excited to move again – next stop: Teva Mountain Games in Colorado! Bye bye Plattling – hello Vail!
Check back for updates how kayaking is going overseas.