Paddle Expo 2012 finally opened it’s doors today to many visitors from all around the world.
It was very busy the whole day on the Palm & Dagger stand, people couldn’t wait to see our new products, colours and boats and we couldn’t wait to present it and tell everyone all about their features and qualities.
Later in the evening we had our stand party with free food, wine and beer and good crowds to enjoy together.
On the big screen the other side of the show Kayak Session put on a film showing of the new Congo movie by Steve Fisher, the best kayak movie I’ve ever seen. Starring athlete Benny Marr flew in specially for this occasion to present the film! Congo Movie Info
Check out the videos so far:
Fresh for 2013 Palm has a whole NEW Layering system. Seppi Strohmeier, Palms Product Coordinator shows us what they’ve been working on…
Palm/ Dagger paddler Dave Carroll gives us a look at the brand NEW Core 4 Thermal one piece suits – Tsangpo Mens suit and Trisuli Womens suit…
Here Seppi talks us through the new Blaze Neoprene Pants, lots of features that set them apart. Similar ideas and features used in all the new Neoflex & Neoprene line so lots of great ways to keep warm this Winter.
Have a look at the photos of the day below: Featuring some of our new products. Our dear customers,visitors and friends. Our beloved staff. The stand party and a glimpse of what went on today…
The last event of this World Cup series at the Nantahala Outdoor Centre, the biggest event of the 3, is the decider of the whole series. It’s also the site of the next World Championships.
So the results from here will give us an indicator of whose looking good for next years Worlds, what we need to work on and who are the ones to beat currently.
The feature is a challenging powerful hole. All moves go in there, but it’s not an easy feature and you need to be fast and powerful to get good rides. The bonus of this event over the previous 2 was also that we had a full week of practice to get used to the feature.
First up of the competition was Mens Prelims. Cutting the field to the top 20. I’d been resting just having a couple practice rides during the week to give my collarbone a chance to heal up a bit after the Pigeon event.
I was really happy with how I was doing in the feature and how the new Dagger Jitsu is performing for me so even without much practice felt like I could compete well here.
I had really good rides and got 3rd place in the prelims, Peter was 1st and Dane 2nd. In the quarters the last 2 weeks of competition caught up with me and I couldn’t push properly on my right sued and finished up 12th. Happy it total but in need of a few weeks off the water to heal myself properly.
I really enjoyed the feature and am looking forward to being at full strength, trained up and un-injured ready to do battle here next year. I think I stand a good chance
In the finals it looked set to be an epic fight between Peter and Dane who’ve been stepping it up against each other every run throughout the series. Then we had Quim Fontane, Nick Troutman and Jason Craig who could easily step up and match them both to take the win here.
It was actually one of the best finals i’ve seen. Peter looked like he had it won with his first ride score of 1246 only for Jason Craig to jump close in his last ride full of big snappy moves to go into 2nd with an 1186.
Then on his last ride Dane shot into the lead with a huge 1316, with only Peter left to go and have one last shot to beat it.
Peter paddled in and let rip, getting all moves pretty much and fighting his hardest to get the Win, the whole crowd was going crazy for him. We were so happy when the score of 1538 came in! Peter 1st, Dane 2nd and Jason Craig 3rd.
This meant his 3rd win of the World Cup and the Overall World Cup 1st for Peter Csonka!
Really couldn’t have been more pleased for him, he really excelled this series and I can’t wait to get back on the water properly next season and compete in such a strong field.
Also worth an extra mention is the great performance of Jason Craig whose been off the water the last two years since a very serious back injury.
It was so great to see him back on the water paddling so well. Another year of training before Worlds and I think he will be another top competitor to add to the growing list of potential winners.
In the Women’s prelims and semis GBR’s Claire O’hara was leading but the rides weren’t that high scoring. Perhaps due to the difficulty of the feature.
The finals started slowly, the Women were going for the hard moves but missed them mostly, and scores comprised mostly of felix’s and loops. The Hole is tricky and powerful and it’s just not that easy for girls to get the highest scoring moves to go here, it requires a big amount of power and snappiness.
However on their 2nd rides the Women seemed to wake up and started to fight for the medals. Ruth Gordon threw a big ride with some Phonic’s, Mc’Nasties and Loops to get a 495. It was the highest score of the women’s competition so far and it seemed to motivate the women to do their best.
Next was Emily Jackson, getting good phonic’s both ways in her ride coming close and scoring 430. Claire O’hara tried to beat Ruth and Emily and improved on her 1st ride but not enough to move up.
Until the very last ride of the final it looked like Ruth would win. Claire was still sat in 3rd position with her last chance to get the top spot being the last ride of the event.
She really put herself together and went all out going for Switch Mc’nasty, Mc’Nasty, Phonics, Felix, Splits, a huge loop and scored a ride of 633 – a ride definitely worthy of her World Champion status!
She said after the competition that she could not believe what just happened in her rides
The fight in this final was definitely good enough to be a World Championships final. Claire’s score was the highest scoring ride of the series for Womens and in one of the harder features!
Overall Women’s World Cup went to Emily Jackson with Claire just behind in the overall standings taking 2nd.
In the Junior Mens Palm/ GBR’s Bren Orton was once again the one to watch with a win at the last event on the Pigeon, a 1st in the Prelims and Semi’s, his dominating paddling looked like the other juniors would have a hard time beating him at NOC.
In the finals Hunter Katich went huge on moves but just didn’t do quite enough moves to beat Bren. Brandurn Hepburn also of GBR came close too but in the end Bren’s 2nd ride score of 836 was unbeatable and he had the luxury of a victory lap last ride to claim his 2nd win of the series. Bren 1st, Hunter 2nd, Brandurn 3rd.
Despite Bren’s domination of the last two events his unfortunate flush at Rock island made the difference in the end as the Overall Junior Mens winner was Hunter Katich of the USA with a 1st and two 2nds. I’m sure Bren’s great paddling will make him another tough competitor next year in his first senior Worlds.
It’s been a really enjoyable trip. With my injury I wasn’t able to compete on the level i’d have liked to, but was very happy with the results I did get. It’s left me and Katya really motivated to train and get ourselves in the best shape for next season.
The NOC feature might well be changed before next year, we really liked it but regardless of feature next September is going to bring a very good competition.
I only wish it would be events every week with such a high standard to compete in It’s always a bit sad when events like these finish. During the series its like a little life for each event and now its over we have to wait quite a while for the next big event to come around. It also gives us lots of time to prepare and get ourselves on the next levels.
A final Congratulations to the overall winners – Peter Csonka, Emily Jackson, Hunter Katich and Nuria Fontane!
This was the toughest day of the event for the men with both Quarterfinals and Semi finals in the same day.
It was tough to make top 10, the cut was about 1800 for 2 rides, which is much higher than Worlds was 1 year ago…but for the top 5 it was even harder. We have pretty much all the same competitors as in Worlds but now Dane and Quim are seniors too. Also Tomas Andrassy from Slovakia, Bartosz and Tomasz from Poland have all became a very strong competitors and are paddling on a top level too.
There are now more than 5 paddlers capable of pulling off an over 1000points ride here.
The hardest thing for me is balancing between scoring a good ride but not pushing too hard on my broken bone I came in 8th in the morning, feeling very pleased to make the semi finals. Peter just stole the top spot from Dane again closely followed by Quim.
In the Semi finals we all knew it was going to be a ride of over a 1000 needed at least to make Finals. This time Dane had one of the sickest rides I’ve ever seen (1350) to get 1st ahead of Peter who was 2nd, Quim 3rd, Stephen 4th and myself 5th with 1066points!!!
European contingent is looking strong, with 3 paddlers making the finals. Now its one day off to recover and rest before its time to really throw down properly on Saturday
In the Junior Men’s, Bren had rides in prelims that would have put him 3rd in the Men’s and almost two times ahead of the other Juniors… he looked on fire, getting two trophy moves in his ride even.
Today he was up again in the Semi’s and as expected easily won with 1053 in one ride with USA’s Hunter Katich going very big to get 700points and 2nd place. Also making the finals was GBR’s Brandon Hepburn in 4th place.
In the Women’s Prelims Katya did very good making the cut for the Semi finals. Claire O’Hara from GBR got 1st in the prelims followed by Ruth Gordon, Nina Csonkova and Emily Jackson.
Semi Finals was today and Claire O’hara was looking strong, taking the 1st place again! Katya did very good rides with Entry moves, Phonics and a Loops, everyone was pretty sure she would make the cut but judges thought differently so she ended up 7th missing the cut by 30 points.
We’re both happy with how we did today and ready for a rest day tomorrow, as it’s no water releasing. It’s such a good feature here, one of the best holes we’ve ever paddled, finals should be very interesting. I’m really hoping to recover a bit and be able to show my best.
During the London 2012 Olympics it’s not just been Slalom going on at the Lee Valley Whitewater centre…
Myself, Claire O’hara, Uganda’s Juma Kalikwani, Japan’s Motoko Ishida, New Zealand’s Courtney Kerin, and USA’s Dane Jackson have all been part of team putting on freestyle kayaking displays between the slalom races.
The aim to show freestyle to as many people as possible, get more kids into it and try to raise the sports profile as a whole (and have a good time doing it).
We were on each day in the break betweens finals and medals, or after the heats, so you might have heard or seen glimpses of us on the BBC footage. Unfortunately, I took myself out of the action with a broken collarbone after the 2nd day, having stacked it skateboarding back to the hotel after our show. Hoping to be back on the water for World Cups.
I was using the new Dagger Jitsu proto as my Guigui was deemed to colourful by the Officials, but the Jitsu even it was plastic was actually a joy to use here at Lee Valley, I’m certainly excited to see how the production one turns out, I think Dagger may well have created something quite special.
Been here at the Olympics has been exciting, fascinating and an overall great experience. We had such a fun time with our team. Watching the incredible performances of GB’s C2 crews, especially Tim and Etienne taking the Gold and Silver yesterday was unforgettable. I’ve never been so gripped by an event.
It didn’t matter what nation was racing when someone was on a winning time everyone began to cheer them on regardless! That is what was so great about the crowds here! and they seemed to love Freestyle!
Getting to see how all the various slalom athletes put themselves together trying to show their best, cheering them on and feeling the electric atmosphere has been amazing. The opening ceremony was like nothing I’ve ever been to, I was very impressed.
In my mind the Olympics is about working hard in pursuit of a goal or dream, trying to show the best of yourself and encouraging/ inspiring others with your actions. I think this is exactly what we saw there after you’ve stripped away all the official BS and commercialism at it’s core it’s still a celebration or humanity and how great the World is!
Anyway, here are some more photos of our time showing off Freestyle Kayaking and keep an eye out for the others this afternoon as they put on the last show.
Pringle
P.S. Thanks to Claire, Sportscene and Terry Best for the additional photos…
The day started with the Men’s K1 Quarter Finals, cutting the field to 10 with three 45-second rides, best 2 counting.
The water was dirty from yesterday night’s thunderstorms but the level seemed to be lower making the feature tougher and harder work to get the moves in.
In the Quarters, everyone was expecting higher scores as we had one ride to throw away but in the end it was lower scores than yesterday, with paddlers getting to grips with the harder level.
The GBR team did very good with all 3 making the top 10, GB’s James Weight in 1st. He is consistently performing on a top level this event. He is the only paddler managing to hit any combo/ trophy moves (the back loop to mcnasty).
I got 5th with mediocre rides I wasn’t quite happy with my paddling so went away to the nearby lake to pull myself together to bring out my best for the semi finals later.
It is a very hot beautiful sunny weather here, but this also means the paddlers are boiling in their gear in the waiting eddy (water is still quite cold here, so many wearing long cags despite the sun).
Next up was the Junior Men’s Semi Final, cutting from 10 to the top 5 who go through to the Final tomorrow. Many boys were struggling with the lower water level.
Palm’s Bren Orton managed to put it together in his 2nd run to get 1st again with GB’s James Benns again on his heals in 2nd. The other GB paddler Sam Stephenson claimed 3rd to get his place to the finals too.
Bren has a very good chance here for the final and has been regularly hitting rides that would place him in the men’s final so I wish him good luck for the fight for the title tomorrow. James Benns the other very talented GB Junior who is very capable of doing a winning ride will probably be the only one who can be an equal competitor for Bren.
Women’s Semi Finals was next with a few surprises. The reigning World Champion GB’s Claire O’Hara unfortunately had a hard time with the lower level and finished 7th, missing the finals. Frenchie Marlene Devillez (reigning European Champion) looks like she’s going to keep her title this year with another 1st going into the finals. Palm’s Anne Huebner unfortunately also missed the final. What is good however is some new faces making the final, Norwegians Tora Heggem and Kari Olnes who just turned senior this year.
Then it was back on the water for me in the Men’s Semi Finals. Competing the second time in the same day in this hole was tough for all of us but actually the standard of rides did go up.
I finally got two rides I was happy with and came 1st with 930 points in my best ride. Just behind me by 14 points was reigning European Champion Peter Csonka, my most usual challenger who I very enjoy to paddle with and against.
He has been suffering quite a bad injury and almost didn’t practice at all in an effort to try and get healed up before the event. Through the pain however he is doing a very tough rides to beat.
3rd was Sebastian Devred from France with a very consistent rides as he usually does.
4th went to Spanish reigning Junior European Champion Joaquim Fontane. Who is performing in his first senior year at a very good level.
The last place in the finals went to GB’s James Weight who seemed to take a break from his high scoring domination to save himself for tomorrow
I think it will be one of the hardest finals I’ve ever been in, with scores similar to Worlds so far but on a much harder feature. I’m looking forward to trying to bring out my best against such good competition
Pringle
P.S. Results in the Gallery below (bit backwards order so check the corner to see whether its for Semi’s or Quarters…:-)
The European Championships 2012 opened yesterday in Lienz, Austria. They held a Opening Ceremony in a 14th century Castle (museum) with free drinks, speeches and a drum performance (just using 2 kayaks).
Lienz is the only place in the World where they would let kayakers into a museum with as many free drinks as they want
Today the competition started from OC1, Junior Men, Womens and C1 Prelims.
The level is a bit different to what people are used to, so its proving quite challenging. (and it’s a pretty tough feature to begin with But the beautiful surroundings, hot sun, mountains, lakes, swimming pools make up for the harshness of the feature.
Junior Mens was dominated by the British team getting the first four places (see results below in photos). Palm Paddler Bren Orton put himself in 1st position a long way ahead with over a 1000 points, getting a first ride that would likely see him in a similar place in the mens.
Womens current European Champion Marlene from France is currently in first place followed by Claire O’Hara from GB. Palms Anne Huebner got through to the semi finals and Katya finished 11th just missing the cut.
C1 prelims were won by GB’s Adam Ramadan ahead of the current European Champions Lukas Cervinka from Czech.
So far you can definitely say that Team GB have dominating the competition, especially taking into account the results in OC1 & Squirt Boats.
Tomorrow the most exciting part coming (hopefully with a K1 men where I’ll get to compete to make the cut to the top 20.
Just back from my trip out to the Teva Games in Colorado it was time to get the van loaded and head off to Austria.
Palms Bren Orton and myself drove straight out to begin training at the site of the 2012 European Championships in Lienz. A beautiful town in the Austrian Alps with a sick play hole in the bottom of the valley surrounded by towering mountains and stunning scenery.
The hole is a really tricky powerful feature that takes time to get used to but also gives you lots of air when you do get the moves. Everyday our paddling is getting better and despite the difficulties of the feature is one of the most fun to paddle.
Aside from the paddling the area is also great for exploring the outdoors. On my rest day I decided to take a trek up the towering mountain nearest the campsite it took a while…and I didn’t quite make the last 20m to the summit but the view was amazing out over the valley with Buzzards flying over-head and black squirrels in the trees I loved it.
One of the challenges here is the fluctuating water level meaning that 1 min its perfect and 20 minutes later your on rocks. The bonus of this however has been plenty time in the Swimming pool opposite the hole to perfect our diving and some good adventures nearby…last night we drove up to 2067m of another mountain, so high in fact that we parked next to a snow mobile
Anyhow 1 more week till the comp begins, hopefully Katya will be here soon too so will report back with more updates as the event progresses.
So me and Palm’s Bren Orton just finished making the Wrap Up Video of our time putting on the Kayak Display at the 2012 Tullett Prebon London Boat Show and all that was on during the show.
Our display was on for 15 minutes twice a day so this gave us plenty time to run around the show in-between demo’s to find all the activities you could try and cause a bit of chaos amongst the Yachting crowd It’s amazing what people will let you do when you have a Camera in hand.
Filmed by: James Bebbington, Bren Orton & David Bain
Edit by: James Bebbington RiverZoo.com
The Kanumesse 2011 show opened this morning, the Palm team spent the day showing off the new range of kit, meeting and talking with dealers and traders and in the evening were giving out snacks and free beer to visitors of the stand…
Me & Katya have been taking photos of whats going on and todays video target was the three new Dry/ Immersion suits in the range:- the Spark, new ladies Element & the touring Aleutian.
Here is the New ladies Element suit:-
The Spark edit is up in the post below more to come as we get through the footage
I came in 8th in the morning, feeling very pleased to make the semi finals. Peter just stole the top spot from Dane again closely followed by Quim.
